Andy Gapin

I’m a huge Simon Pegg and Nick Frost fan so a movie that’s finally written by the two of them was something I’ve wanted for a while. Include that with the rest of the list of people involved in making Paul and it’s easy to set your hopes a bit too high. Though, having read some interviews with Pegg and Frost regarding the film, I had a good idea of what to expect.

Paul delivered on those expectations in every way that I could have hoped for and was everything I wanted it to be. There were nerdy jokes and just the right amount of cheese. There was a decent amount of stuff hidden in the movie for nerds, even some stuff that I didn’t pick up on at first. Paul proves that while Pegg and Frost work amazingly well with Edgar Wright, the two of them can survive on their own without him. In fact, the main reason Paul actually happened was because Wright was off working on Scott Pilgram vs the World and Pegg and Frost had some downtime to actually write the script for an idea they collectively had for a while.

Paul kind of reminds me of what I would expect ToeJam and Earl (remember those guys?) to be like if they had become assimilated into American culture and pair with a couple of British dudes. Friendly, a bit rude, and totally hilarious.

Surprisingly, one of the best parts of the film turned out to be an ongoing joke of random profanity that brought back memories of seeing Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back for the first time. Now, random cursing sounds like it could kill the quality of a movie real quickly, but it fits and it’s creativity actually adds to the quality of Paul.

Paul is simultaneously a sci-fi movie, a road trip movie, and a buddy comedy, but it is not at all a parody, instead it kind of tips its hat to these genres and stands squarely on its own two feet.

Paul is highly recommended as a see-it-right-now movie. Don’t wait.

Rating: A-

So I got myself an iPad 2, a nice fully loaded 64GB black one with 3G thanks to my fiancée and I having hit our wedding savings goal six months early. We’ve been wanting to get one to share for a long time now, but I was insistent on waiting for the second generation. After playing with it for a couple of days, I think I’m ready to type up a review…and I promise I’ve got some complaints down there.

Getting One
Since Apple didn’t do a preorder, the only way to get one before the weekend was to wait in line…and that’s what we did. Throughout the course of the day on Friday, I did my best to try to monitor the lines at Apple Stores around the country via Twitter, but I really couldn’t get a good read on the local situation. Some stores seemed to have crazy lines while others had nothing.

When it was finally time to head over to the store at 4pm, we really had no idea what to expect. We went to the store in the Bridgewater, NJ mall and when we walked in and started to head down to the first floor, we immediately saw an intense line. Hundreds deep. No one knew how many iPads were going to be in stock when 5PM finally rolled around and they opened up the doors so I was petty worried that we weren’t going to get one. I decided to increase our odds and ran across the street to Best Buy while the fiancée stayed in line at the Apple Store. The Best Buy line was much shorter, I was somewhere in the 60-70 range when I got there. I claimed my spot in line and waited. It had been announced that Best Buy would start handing out tickets at 4:30, but they didn’t. This process didn’t start until 5. Until then, the line continued to get longer as other people decided to come across from the mall and see what Best Buy could do for them.

When Best Buy finally started handing out tickets, they quickly ran out of the exact model that I wanted, a fully loaded model in black, 64GB WIFI+3G for AT&T (a little faster data than Verizon and useable overseas with a prepaid SIM card from a local carrier). This was apparently one of the most popular models. After this news broke, a few people left, but I decided to stay and see what they still had when the all-mighty ticket-giving guy got down to me.

Meanwhile over at the mall, my fiancée was being told by Apple employees that it was unlikely she would be able to get one considering where she was in line. Things were looking pretty unsure.

Eventually, Mr Ticket-Giver finally got down to me and still had a sizable stack of tickets left. I was pretty psyched that I’d be able to get one, but I knew I’d be getting my second choice. No worries, I’d just get what I could get and see how the fiancée made out. I actually could have gotten the model I wanted in white instead of black, but I’m just not feeling the white. I decided to go with the 64GB black Verizon model. I got my ticket and could barely have been happier (an AT&T model would have been the only way). I texted the fiancée and let her know we got one, but to still stay in line until I got over there to pick her up. Anyway, I was a bit surprised at how many tickets they still had, it turned out that the last person in line (maybe 130ish?)  got the very last ticket. Worked out pretty well.

Once I had my Best Buy ticket, I still had to stay in the line outside as they only let five people in at a time to actually buy their iPads. It wasn’t too much longer at this point though and once I got my our iPad, I hopped in the car and drove across the street.

I met my fiancée in line over at the Apple Store. She had about five more people ahead of her (remember, she was somewhere around 200-300 in line and I was only 60-70 at Best Buy with about a fifteen minute window from when I got mine in hand to when I got over to her). Once we got up to the front, we were informed that they too were sold out of the AT&T model. So instead, we picked up a 16GB white WIFI only model for my buddy (we had a reciprocal deal worked out for whoever was able to get their hands on them first).

When we left the Apple Store, there were still a couple hundred people waiting. I have no idea if everyone got an iPad or not.

First Impressions
Alright, so with what went into actually getting one into my hands out of the way, let’s talk about the iPad itself.

This thing is insanely thin. You really can’t get a sense for how thin it is until you hold it yourself. It’s thinner than my iPhone and even with the Smart Cover on, is just a hair thicker. It’s like holding a (heavy) clipboard. And this thinness actually makes a difference. Even though the device is a bit heavy (despite being slightly lighter than its predecessor), the thinness almost makes the hardware disappear while you’re using it. You forget you’re using a device and you just sink right into what you’re doing. It’s truly amazing and I realize what it sounds like to say something like that, but it really is true, this is unlike any other computing experience.

Hardware
The iPad 2 has a great feel to it. The workmanship and  design easily best any other tablet on the market right now, including both the original iPad and the new Motorola Xoom. The aluminum backing makes the device feel super sturdy and from an aesthetic standpoint, the device just looks great. The only real knock here is that the iPad is still a little heavy (though not when compared to competing tablets of the same screen size), at first you’re not quite sure the best way to hold it to keep your arm from getting tired, but you figure it out pretty quickly. The weight lets you know this isn’t a toy, this is a real computing device.

The screen is very good, but still not a Retina Display. The viewing angles on this thing really couldn’t get much better, the colors never wash out. It’s plenty bright as well. That being said, if you’ve used an iPhone 4, you will notice the difference in the pixel density. The display isn’t quite as crisp, however, this difference isn’t anything like when I pick up my fiancée’s iPhone 3GS. The iPad is crisper. Now, to be fair about this point, that’s when holding the devices at the same distance. You don’t hold an iPad as close to your eyes as you do a phone. Under actual use, the pixel density is a complete non-issue. You only notice it in comparison, not on its own.

Battery life is outstanding. The device comes charged to something like 75-80%. Other than while it was plugged into a computer to sync stuff a few times, we didn’t plug it in to charge until today and it has been in use almost constantly since we got it out of the box. We can’t put it down. Battery life will never been something anyone could complain about on this device. Ten hours of real world use will be no problem. I’ve seen some of the battery rundown tests from a few gadget sites and their tests are getting about 10.5 hours of life with tests that are probably a bit more intensive than your average usage. I’d say, expect more.

Put bluntly, the cameras are the weakest part of the device. The front camera is VGA and the rear one isn’t even 1MP for stills (takes 720p video). That’s pretty low-end. I would imagine that this choice was more of a size issue than a cost issue for Apple. Higher quality cameras wouldn’t have fit into a device this thin and I’ll take the thinness over the higher quality cameras. The quality is fine for video chatting, but you’re not going to be taking stills with them. And you know what? It doesn’t matter. Really. Even if the cameras were as good or better than an iPhone 4, holding up a 10″ device to take a photo is just all kinds of awkward. A tablet is never going to be heavily used as a camera, it just doesn’t fit the form-factor of the device. Besides, I don’t know about most people, but I will never have this thing with me and not have my phone which takes excellent photos just as close. It’s a non-issue.

The speed on this thing is redonkulous. I’ve never actually typed “redonkulous” before, but it feels appropriate. It just flies. Everything is so smooth, it makes my iPhone 4 feel slow and that takes a lot for a mobile device. iFixit’s teardown of the device actually showed that the A5 processor (built on a Cortext A9 dual-core chip) is actually not even running at a full 1GHz, it’s underclocked to around 900MHz. On paper, the A5 compares pretty evenly with Tegra 2 chips that run the Motorola Xoom and benchmarking puts CPU performance neck-and-neck. But in actual use, the iPad 2 just responds so much more smoothly than the Xoom, in my opinion. Graphics processing on the other hand, the iPad 2′s A5 smokes the Xoom’s Tegra 2. Games on this thing will fly. Existing iPad games already run much smoother, but once developers start taking advantage of this hardware, it’s going to be ridiculous. I’ve read a bit about the benchmarks for the graphics processing and the general consensus of all the articles and reports I’ve read is that it’s not even fair to put the two platforms on the same graph, the iPad 2 pretty much embarrasses the Xoom.

Okay, so that was a bit of nerding out, let’s talk actual real world performance…it’s nuts. The iPad 2 is a workhorse. The device runs incredibly smoothly. Apps launch instantly and run with no limitation, they just do their thing with no holdups from the hardware. I was reading some tweets by the developer of Filterstorm and he’s finding that he can drop full resolution RAW files from a DSLR into his app and work with them like it’s nothing. Nuts. This better mean that Adobe gets on the ball to get a Lightroom app into the App Store and, better yet, into my face.

The iPad 2 has 512MB of RAM which is twice as much as the first iPad, but only half as much as the Xoom and other competing tablets coming out soon. In practice, this doesn’t seem to limit anything, I dumped a bunch of RAW photos from my camera and could swipe through them like they’re nothing. Apps don’t seem limited at all. We’ll see what happens, but it seems like enough.

Simply put, on the hardware side, wow.

My only hardware complaint besides the display, which really doesn’t even lack in actual usage, is the lack of an SD slot. I got the camera connection kit and I don’t mind the $29 cost of it that much, but it’s just another dongle to try not to lose and make sure that I always have with me. I plan on using this a lot with my camera to dump photos to and maybe even be able to start editing some before I get home so having a built in SD slot would have been pretty solid.

Software
On the software front, we get basically the same old iOS that we’ve been play with since June of last year. My personal preference is iOS over Android (that’s a discussion for another day), but I do like Android and what it brings to the table a lot. iOS is a clean and smooth mobile operating system that likes to keep things very closed up, but this attitude is what makes the device not only “just work,” but just work smoothly and quickly.

iOS is great, but there are some big issues that I have with it that seriously better get fixed in iOS 5. I actually had two basic complaints, but now that I’ve been using this, I’ve got a third. One of the initial two complaints is much less apparent on an iPad than on an iPhone and the other is the opposite. Firstly, the damn notification system. It’s awful. There’s not much else you can say about it. Luckily, there are less notifications to get on an iPad than on your phone so this is a little less of a problem, but if you’re still planning on using a lot of push notifications, you’re going to find this just as annoying as on an iPhone. iOS is the only modern mobile OS that still hasn’t gotten notifications under control, Apple must fix this.

The second complaint, and this is the one that’s really apparent on an iPad, is that there are no widgets. I don’t want much, but I would like to be able to see calendar events and weather and such right on the homescreen without going into an app. The homescreen looks nice and clean without it, but this slight break in cleanness would be worth the usability. Besides, you know if Apple were to add this, they’d make it look all nice like.

The wildcard complaint, the new one, is that Apple hasn’t yet built in a nice way for iDevices to work together. Before the iPad, this wasn’t really an issue, but it would be really nice to be able to send links/files/apps/photos/videos/whatever back and forth wirelessly without another app or anything. I just want the devices to know the others exist and communicate with each other. I’d also like this from my Mac as well, please. This isn’t a dealbreaker, photos and videos can be transfered from an iPhone to an iPad with the camera connection kit and Bump can also move some stuff between the two, but why should this require a third-party app? If third party developers can make it happen, Apple should be able to build it in.

Alright, so anyway, iOS 4.3 is what we’ve got for not and despite those complaints, it runs great and gets the job done. It’s reliable and it’s clean. I’m a fan. I don’t miss Flash. I really don’t. Most video on the internet is HTML5 by  now and Flash is a crappy resource hog…even on a computer.

Photobooth is kind of pointless and I haven’t installed Garageband or messed around with iMovie yet so I can’t comment about them myself, but the reviews I’ve read are full of praise. I also haven’t tried FaceTime yet…in fact, I’ve only used it exactly once on my iPhone so I probably won’t be using it on the iPad anytime soon.

I’m still checking out more third party iPad-optimized apps, but I’m really digging Air Display which lets you use the iPad as a second display for your computer. It works via WIFI and is really good. There is some noticeable lag, but it’s very minimal. You can’t play video (well) or games on it, but for just having other things visible, it’s great.

Oh, and I enabled the extra gestures that make the home button unnecessary and I’m digging them a lot. I’d suggest it if you have one.

Smart Cover
This is pure genius. It’s not an entirely brand new idea to have a cover that can also be a stand, but the way that it can fold into a stand for two different positions is great. Attaching it is quick and easy too. There really is no fuss to this, the magnets pull it right into place and it’s perfectly lined up every time. It’s the easiest to attach case that’s ever exist for a gadget, hands down. And it stays on too. The magnets are stronger than you think.

Opening the cover wakes up the iPad without the lock screen and you’re good to go. Closing it puts it to sleep. It just happens…like the refrigerator light. It’s well thought out and a great addition to the device.

Other Thoughts
I didn’t  have an iPad 1, so the actual owning a tablet thing is new to me, but I have used others here and there to try out. So far, I’m finding that typing on this thing is much easier than I thought. I’ve got a good one handed thing going on with it and when putting it down and typing with two hands, it’s not too bad. I wouldn’t want to type a book on it and I only got through part of this review on it before wanting to switch to a real keyboard, but it’s more than good enough to get the job done.

A lot of people still question the need for tablets and I get that, but I also do agree that they are the future for most computer use. They won’t be great for everything, but general/casual computing actually feels better on a tablet than on a traditional computer. I’ve found that web browsing and social networking is a more comfortable and informal experience on an iPad. I can sit back on the couch and find a comfortable position without needing to worry about placing my computer on my lap. It really is ideal when you’re not typing a whole lot.

Compared to the Motorola Xoom
I had a few minutes to play with a Motorola Xoom today and I’ll be honest and say that it’s pretty a nifty and overall solid device. However, when you compare it to the iPad 2, it just doesn’t hold up. The Xoom’s Honeycomb version of Android is nice and the widgets and various things on the homescreen are useful, but they seem to make it feel cluttered and messy. iOS just feels cleaner. The Xoom also seemed decently powerful, but at the same time it wasn’t nearly as responsive and fluid. Despite having a solid notification system and a nicer app-switching UI, Honeycomb is lacking that smoothness and polish that the iPad has. The Xoom’s cameras are definitely better, but it was awkward holding the device up to take a photos with them. Like I said, non-issue.

The Moto Xoom seems to do a lot well, but but it also lacks in a lot of ways and in the end loses out to the iPad 2, in my opinion.

Photos

Rango is an animated film that brings us something a little different than other animated films have brought to theaters, Johnny Depp having an existential crisis. This fact alone pushes the film closer to an adult movie than a kids movie, but luckily for children, this starts off heavy in the beginning, but then lightens up a little to a level more palatable to kids.

This flick is a lot of fun, but it’s no secret that I rarely dislike animated films. I’m not sure if an animated film can count as a western, but if it does, you can count this as two westerns in a row that I’ve seen and loved. Though, this and that other western are quite different. Rango is a lot of fun and has a some great laughs in it–I actually wasn’t the giggliest one in the theater for once–but it also gets down to business a bit too.

I found there to be nothing not to like about Rango, I enjoyed Depp’s voice-acting quite a bit and at times felt myself lost in the detail of the animation which reaches levels close to what Pixar is able to pull off.

All in all, Rango is a great film and even though it’s over an hour and forty-five minutes, it doesn’t feel long. Check it out.

Rating: A

I actually forgot that I saw this (a week ago). I think that’s kind of all I really have to say about Gnomeo & Juliet, it’s a cute movie, but it’s forgettable.

The main problem that Gnomeo & Juliet faces is that the idea was to make a happy and fun children’s movie based on possibly the most well-known tragedy ever. We all know how Romeo & Juliet actually ends and that’s just not conducive to making a children’s movie. This really does change the entire vibe of the story (I mean come on, there can’t be a single second that any audience member actually expected a tragic ending), but I can give credit to the fact that Romeo & Juliet’s actual ending wasn’t totally ignored. This deviation from the original story is addressed in a manner that works well enough for a children’s film, but also feels like an easy way out.

Gnomeo & Juliet is good enough to entertain for an hour and a half, but does not leave any desire for a second viewing. Kids will like this, Elton John fans will be in heaven, and everyone else will be rather indifferent about it.

Rating: C

As I mentioned in my review of the F-Stop Loka, I needed a second camera bag to fit my needs/wants. This second bag needed to be lightweight and offer super quick access to my camera. It also needed to carry a couple of additional lenses, my flash, and maybe a Nalgene bottle and some random little things. This would be the bag that I’d have with me while in Disney and while going for photo walks or whatever. This search was a little easier than the backpack search since I had already combed through hundreds and hundreds of bags. I had already found brands that seemed to make solid products and knew what features I wanted. This quickly landed be back to Clik Elite, a company that specializes in photo bags for hiking and adventuring. Maybe you can see a theme here, but my camera bag search definitely proved that the best camera bags are bags that are solid bags first and camera bags second. Anyway, I had really liked some of their bags when I was looking for an everyday use backpack, but none of them were designed to hold a laptop which was a dealbreaker for me. So I was glad to come right back to them after realizing that I would need a second bag. Since I knew I wanted a sling, I went right over to the Impulse. I looked at other bags to be thorough, but came back to this one after each one.

Unlike F-Stop, Clik Elite’s bags are easy to get, you can order them on Amazon, allowing the Impulse to come as a gift from my mom for Christmas–I was a little tapped out after ordering the F-Stop Loka and doing my Christmas shopping. When I got the bag, I was surprised by the size, I expected it to be a little big. This was a pleasant surprise, however. The bag is still a little bigger than the Lowepro SlingShot 100 that my friend’s wife has, but it looks a lot better, I think. The bag doesn’t immediately scream “HEY! I’ve got like $2000 worth of camera equipment on me!” To be fair, it doesn’t take much to realize that there’s a camera in it, but that’s not immediately obvious. I like that a lot.

The bag will fit my camera with my kit lens attached, my flash, my 50mm prime, and, if I squeeze, my new 70-200 f/4 L (without the hood). I doubt the 70-200mm will be coming with for more than special occasions, but being able to fit that in there is a nice plus. Even with all that stuff in there, the bag didn’t feel terribly heavy on, but I only did a couple laps around the house and didn’t have anything in the other compartments. This main camera compartment opens up from the side to allow quick access to your camera without taking the bag off. This was definitely a must-have for me.

In addition to the camera section, there are a few other compartments as well. There is a larger compartment on top of the camera one. This compartment is much bigger than some of the photos showed it to be. There’s plenty of room in here to stuff a hoodie or even more lenses if you wanted. You could fit a couple paperbacks, probably even an iPad. Hell, a netbook could even fit if you really wanted it in there. This compartment is definitely big enough to carry anything you might need for a day out and about.  Above that, there’s a sunglasses/electronics compartment that’s built into the top of the bag as it tapers into the shoulder strap. This compartment is small, but will fit sunglasses or an iPod, probably both. Just to try it out, I stuffed my iPod and point and shoot in there without a problem.

On the bottom of the bag is a zippered media organizer. This will hold an extra battery and memory cards, as well cleaning stuff. I find it odd that this is on the bottom of the pack, but this does allow access to it without taking the sling off which I guess was the idea. There’s a mesh pouch on one side to hold a water bottle or whatever and another mesh pocket of the front of the bag for anything else.

I like the design of the bag quite a bit. It looks nice, which was a selling point for me, but it’s also durable feeling. I’ve only had the bag a few days so I haven’t really put it to use yet, but it feels like it will last. The material is very thick and the stitching feels strong. The zippers are all metal and are water resistant.

The bag feels very comfortable on. The top of the shoulder strap, the part that is actually on your shoulder, has a lot of extra padding to cushion it and there is a sternum attachment that adds a third point to hold the bag tight on your body. The extra padding on the back of the bag feels nice too.

The bag is more expensive than a lot of the other slings out there, but just like the F-Stop bag, the quality seems to make up for it. I’m pretty happy with it so far, but I haven’t put much use into it so far. I’ll have it with me at all times while in Disney so that’ll be the test, but I think this was a good purchase.

EDIT (5/1/2011): An iPad 2 fits perfectly in the top portion of this bag. It’s like they were made for each other.

I’ve been a Boxee user for a long time now, it’s a great piece of software that brings together a lot for you and works great with setups like mine. The Boxee software is available for Mac, Linux, Windows, Apple TV, and a few other devices. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a media center application that allows you to pull together all kinds of content. You can pull in video from any computers on your network, as well as streaming media from ALL over the internet. You can even pull in Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube. There are also social aspects of it that allow it to pull in videos shared by your friends on Twitter and Facebook.

But this is not a review of the Boxee software, this a review of their new set-top box, aptly named the Boxee Box. It’s a little black dealy that plugs into your TV and runs a slightly modified version of the same Boxee software that you can download from their site. I’ve been waiting for this thing for a long time. For the last 6 or 7 years, I’ve had a HTPC (home theater PC) setup going in my living room. Since I have hundreds of movies on my server, this was almost necessary for me to be able to actually enjoy all of that content. However, this was a cumbersome setup, even running Boxee. Since I didn’t use the computer everyday, I didn’t keep it on. So the library was never up to date and I’d always have to wait for it to boot up. Because of this, I rarely even used it. Once the Boxee Box was announced, I knew this was for me and I waited and waited while ignoring decent offerings from other companies. Finally, about a month and a half after finally becoming available, I’ve got one in my living room.

The box is surprisingly small. When I first saw the design of it, an oddly cube shaped device that is oriented at an angle so you couldn’t possibly put anything on top of it, I thought it would be much bigger. However, even though it’s shaped weird, it fits nicely next to my Wii and it has a nice bright green rubbery bottom for an added touch. On the outside, my favorite part is the cute glowing green Boxee logo that almost seems to be smiling at you.

The box comes with a really nice remote. There are only a handful of buttons on the top: play/pause, menu/back, enter, and a d-pad. The cool thing though, is that if you flip the remote over, you get a full QWERTY keypad. This is nice. You don’t spend a ton of time typing and generally only need a few letters, but this is a big plus over something on screen. It’s also a big plus over the large keyboards being offered by some competing products like most of the Google TV offerings. You can actually hold this in your hand and use it like a regular remote. The remote does come with one love/hate thing though, it’s an RF remote so you can’t use it with a universal remote, but that does bring some convenience of not having to have the remote pointed at the TV.

Getting the box up and running is simple, just power and HDMI. When you turn it on, you get asked for your Boxee account (you can make one if you don’t have one) and then you’re off to go.  When I turned mine on, there was an update ready for it so I went ahead and installed that right away. After it was ready, I spent some time going through the settings and then I set it to pull in the video content from my server which didn’t take too long. Just like the Boxee software that you can download, it will try to find all the DVD covers for your movies and TV shows. Boxee wasn’t able to get everything, but it got a lot.

Navigating around is simple and intuitive and, if you’ve used Boxee before, you’ll feel right at home. There are a lot of changes to the software for the Boxee Box, but you’ll figure it out. The box is very responsive and it’s a lot of fun to use.

For playing your own media, Boxee is great. It really is. Things play smoothly and quickly and it’s a much better experience than a PS3 or even Boxee on an HTPC–the difference is your library seems to stay updated better without having to leave it on all the time. This thing plays just about anything you throw at it. Where the box falters though, is streaming media. Things stream fine, but there’s no Netflix or Hulu support yet. The DIY downloadable software has it, but it’s not here on the Boxee Box. Netflix is said to be coming REALLY SOON. Boxee said by the end of the year, but clearly, that didn’t happen. Hulu shouldn’t be far away either, but it will only be Hulu Plus which sucks. I mean, Hulu Plus is fine, but I’m not willing to pay yet another monthly bill so that’s out. I expect that the Netflix integration will work just like it does on any other device so I’m excited about that coming soon. As for Hulu, I don’t use it that often, only every now and again, so I’ll survive without it. Since this was a Hulu decision, not a Boxee one, it ‘s made me a little sour on the site. Honestly, it makes me want to just download shows instead. That’s actually less of a hassle.

Other streaming sites are a mixed bag. Some have apps which is nice, but when you click the video, you’re taken to a clunky browser which is a pain to navigate with a d-pad (you can use an iPhone as a remote too which should work better). Once in the browser, the video starts to play and sometimes it goes right to fullscreen for you. When it doesn’t, you can just move over to the fullscreen button and click it. Oddly, I did this once and couldn’t get it out. Nothing I did got the video off the screen and I ended up having to turn off the box. I’m not sure what the deal is, but this is definitely a bug that should get fixed soon.

To be honest, being shuttled off to a browser for much of the streaming content is really disappointing. It’s just not a good experience at all and it really takes away from the box. If the browser were better and easier to move around in, this wouldn’t be quite so bad, but that’s not the case. If the box could pull in the video without leaving it’s own interface, this would be a much more cohesive experience. Even if the ads were still pulled in, this would be better.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the Boxee Box, despite some big faults. I like it a lot for playing my own video, so much so that I actually spent some time the other day just hunting my server for stuff to watch just because I wanted to keep using it. Unfortunately, streaming sucks and while my usage of streaming video on the Boxee Box still wouldn’t amount to more than like a third of my overall usage, this is very disappointing. It’ll get you by for the occasional video, but right now, this box is not a good buy for anyone that is looking for more streaming content to their TV. If you want to play local content though, friggin’ go for it. I’m just hoping that some future firmware updates make the streaming experience a little better…and that they come soon.

My search for the ultimate backpack was not an easy one. I spent weeks looking at different bags online before making a decision. The biggest problems were my pickiness and wanting too much from a single bag. The bag I chose needed work as an everyday bag and be durable to last for years through all kinds of mistreatment. I wanted a bag designed to carry my camera and a couple extra lenses, but the backpack couldn’t look like camera bag, I wanted it to look like a regular backpack. The bag needed have room for a couple days’ worth of clothes and my MacBook Pro, but still not be very bulky. With a couple other minor must-haves in there, I had my work cut out for me.

Eventually, I stumbled across a small company called F-Stop that specializes in making photography bags for skiing and snowboarding. They have three different sized backpacks and after reading a ton of reviews across all the models, I decided to get the smallest one, the Loka. Even though the Loka is their smallest bag, it’s still plenty big at 37L. As far as the dimensions go, the bag is only a few inches taller than the Pakuma Akara K1 laptop bag that I’ve been carrying every day for the last few years. The Loka is actually not quite as wide and just two inches thicker. It’s taller than I was looking for, but still not bad.

The design of the bag is great both aesthetically and functionally.  There are plenty of pockets and places to put things. The main compartment is very large and opens from both the top and the back of the pack. Inside the main compartment, you get to put your choice of an internal camera unit (ICU) (this where you actually put your photo gear). On top of the ICU, there is still plenty of room for a weekend’s worth of clothes or whatever else you want to carry. There is almost a standard Jansport backpack’s worth of room left there still.

A little more about the ICUs, they are removable and there are four different sizes available–depending on what sizes you have, you can even fit two in there, if you need to. I opted for the medium ICU which is more than big enough to fit my camera with any lens I have attached, two additional lenses (more, but that’s all I’ve got), a flash, and some other crap. The ICUs also make for a great way to store your equipment when it’s not in use, but I found that getting the ICU into the pack and strapped in on both sides was a little more troublesome than I thought it would be. It only takes about a minute to get the pack in and strapped, but it’s a slightly cumbersome procedure. Since I only bought a single ICU, I don’t see myself removing it too often.

As I mentioned above, the pack opens from the back and the top. When you open from the back, you get access to the contents of the ICU. While this means that access to your camera isn’t super quick (you have to take the bag off), it does mean that your camera is protected from thieves trying to pull a fast one while you’re in crowded areas. The design allows you to put your pack down in the snow and access the contents without having the part that goes against your back actually touching the snow. While this won’t matter for everyday use, this bag will be coming with me on the mountain every once in a while so this will be a nice feature.

The top flap to the bag has pockets on both sides. The outer pocket as a couple smaller pockets inside for putting things and the inner one is made of mesh. These make for a great place to put things like keys, cables, etc. The flap on the back of the bag has very tight pockets for spare batteries and memory cards, a great way to not waste space in the bag and provide extra organization. There is also padding to add comfort to your back. On either side of the pack there are mesh pockets which hold a Nalgene bottle pretty well and I usually throw my iPod in one of them for everyday use (won’t do this on the mountain). These mesh pockets can also be used with the side straps for holding a tripod. However, I’ve found that the pocket which I normally keep my Nalgene bottle in has stretched out very slightly. This may just be normal wear as the bag breaks in, but I’m going to keep an eye on it.

On the front, there’s a vertical zipper that opens up to another compartment. This one is much smaller than the main compartment, but could still be big enough to put a fair amount of stuff in, if you needed it. And finally, underneath the pack there is a pocket for storing the optional rain cover which seems to be rarely needed as the bag is pretty water resistant and designed to survive on the mountain even without the cover.

Because of some shipping problems that F-Stop has been having, it took close to a month to get my bag. This was a little disappointing as customer service kept providing what seemed to be hopeful ETAs instead of realistic ones. Still, I would not hold the shipping problems against the company as they are still very small and the time and money seems to have gone into the product instead of customer service and ironing out the kinks in their shipping process (the actual issue was in shipping from their overseas production site to their US warehouse, not in shipping to me).

So because of the shipping issues, I’ve only had the bag for about two weeks, but I’ve been using it every day. However, the bag does feel a tad big for everyday use for me since I’m not a bit guy. I like to bring a backpack to the office with me just to keep my headphones (a big pair of over the ear Sennheiser HD-280s), a handful of cables, and my camera. My fiancée makes fun of me for always bringing my camera to work, but I like having it with me in case there’s something that comes up to take photos of…like waffle day. I also sometimes bring my laptop if there are things I want to try to get done during lunch. The Loka holds all of this stuff very nicely and doesn’t feel too heavy on, even when I just wear it on one shoulder as I normally do from the car up to my cube.

One thing that I’d like to mention about carrying my laptop in the Loka is that this model does not feature a full sized laptop slot. F-Stop’s other two models, Tilopa and Satori, are designed to carry 15″-17″ notebooks in a padded slot, but this bag does not feature that. This was almost a dealbreaker for me, but there is a sleeve that fits my netbook or my Google Cr-48 (or a hydration sleeve if you want, there’s an opening for the tube). While I don’t like carrying any computer unprotected in a bag, I feel more than comfortable with either of these in the slot. The bag itself seems to provide enough protection for everyday use so as long as I don’t go throwing the thing around or have the computer in there while snowboarding. I think they’ll be fine. That being said, a 15″ laptop in its own padded sleeve will still fit in the bag. Since I don’t have a sleeve for my MacBook Pro, I haven’t gotten to try this, however, I did slip it in between the ICU and the back flap and this worked pretty well. The space there is just perfect for my MacBook Pro and because of the padding in the ICU and on the back flap, it’s pretty protected. This does block access to the ICU, but I can’t imagine any time in which the extra second it will take to pull my computer out will be much of an annoyance. I found that this was actually a pretty ideal way to carry my laptop in this bag the other day when I went home for Christmas. I wanted to bring my MacBook Pro with me so that I could work on photos as I took them, but I also wanted to bring my Cr-48 to show it to my dad. I was able to put the Cr-48 in the netbook sleeve and the MacBook Pro between the flap and the ICU. They fit wonderfully. And the straps held the weight too.

Something that’s very convenient about this bag is that it has a removable internal frame which helps the weight to be distributed properly to your hips when using the chest and waist straps. The frame also helps the bag stand up straight when you set it down. This makes it very easy to get things out of it and keeps the bag from getting dirty when you put it down.

As I mentioned, the bag is bigger than the bag I was using, but the side straps help it compress very nicely. With the ICU in, the bottom half of the bag doesn’t compress a lot, but the top can compress a ton. This helps the bag to not look monstrous when wearing with a light load.

Overall, I’m extremely happy with this bag. It’s made well and carries everything I need, whether it’s just my daily travel to and from the office or a weekend trip. I haven’t taken it out yet on the slopes, but that’s coming soon. I have nothing but high expectations for it. It’s also not too bulky and is comfortable to wear. Based on much of what I’ve read, this seems to be a lot better than 99% of camera bags out there. F-Stop bags are made by people who are both photographers and snowboarders/skiers. They are designed based on actual use by people that actually use the products and each revision takes into account user feedback. Rather than sewing straps to a padded camera case, F-Stop designed an extremely good backpack and then added a removable camera case.

The only complaint that I really have is the price, at $250 with 1 ICU included, this bag is just about the most expensive bag I looked at. However, the quality and the design make up for that a lot. One of my original most-haves for a bag was something with quick access to the camera, but after a while, I realized that I couldn’t get everything I wanted from just one bag. This was the feature that made the most sense to drop, but it also meant that I would need (okay, want) a second bag for those times when I’m out all day, but only need my camera and maybe a couple small things on me, like Disney (only one week away!) and photo scavenger hunts around NYC. For that, I decided a sling would be best. This hunt was much easier, but I’ll get into that in another post this week.

Classified under cool things that can happen that I wasn’t expecting would be having Google send me a free laptop, but that’s what happened last week.

How I got it

As most have heard, Google has made their own operating system called Chrome OS and they put together a pilot program to get it into the hands of people while they continue the development. To get one, you can apply for the pilot program by filling out a form and hoping for the best. They are trying to get all kinds of people in the program, but I’m not sure of the specifics of how they’re choosing people. I filled out the form almost right after it went up and was hopeful, but I figured it was a long shot especially since when I answered the question asking why I’d be a unique user, I kind of gave an honest response and said that I wouldn’t be.

I expected that to be the end of it, I hadn’t heard anything so I figured I wasn’t chosen. This is where the surprise comes in, Friday night when my fiancée and I got home from our company’s holiday party, there was a box sitting on the front step. It was addressed to me which was confusing to both of us as I wasn’t waiting on anything, all the Christmas gifts that I had ordered had come already. The box was completely unmarked and the return address didn’t help–it certainly didn’t say Google on it. I was a little afraid, to be honest. I made my fiancée face the other way just in case it was something I ordered for her and had forgotten about. As I opened the box, I actually leaned back a bit, I had a slight fear that it was going to blow up in my face. I really had no idea what it was. Had I been completely sober at the time and not still a little buzzed from the party, I may have been even more careful.

When I got the box open, there was just another box inside. This box wasn’t labeled either. There was a nice graphic on one side that gave no real indication of what was inside and a lithium-ion battery warning sticker on the other side. No other markings. I was still a bit confused so I again opened the box in front of me with extreme caution and still expecting a face full of explosion. As I opened this box, the first thing that I saw was the battery and as I pulled that out, I saw a sheet of paper and the computer itself. At this point, I knew exactly what it was, but I was in utter shock. I couldn’t believe I had been selected for the pilot program. I also couldn’t believe that Google had sent me a free computer and didn’t even send me an email to let me know I had been selected–apparently, most people did get an email though.

Even though I was tired and a bit buzzed still, I immediately powered the machine on and started playing with it. How could I not? It was neat and my fiancée quickly grabbed it from me and logged in with her account too.

Awesome.

The review

How could I not review this thing, right? So where to start? Hmm…I’ll start with the outside. If you’ve read any reviews of this thing so far, you’ll know that the aesthetics are view simple. The computer is all matte black and entirely unbranded. It looks amazing, sort of reminiscent of the black MacBook. There are no fingerprints left as you handle it. It’s wonderful. Appearance-wise, computers don’t get much nicer than this. I truly love it. One thing that you would never even think about until you’re presented with an unbranded computer is that if you’re not paying attention, it’s easy to try to open it from the wrong side. When you pick it up, it’s not immediately apparent which side the hinge is on. I’ve made this mistake a few times.

It’s a bit bigger than my Asus Eee 1101HA which makes sense since it’s a 12″ screen, but it’s comparable in weight. The machine doesn’t feel featherlight, it’s got a small bit of heft to it, but it also feels quite solid. I don’t feel like I’m going to break it…very unlike my Eee. Very nice. When you open up the lid, everything still feels pretty solid. When you close it, the top snaps down with authority and stays closed. Again, very nice. While it’s open, you’re presented with a spacious, yet simplified chiclet-style keyboard. I like the keys and this thing is a pleasure to type on–I’m actually typing this review on it. The keys feel solid under your fingers and don’t have too much travel, but there is enough to keep you from guessing if you’ve actually pressed them or not. I like typing on this thing much more than my Eee.

The most interesting part of the keyboard is the layout of the keys. Obviously, a Windows key isn’t needed so that’s gone. This frees up some room so the Ctrl and Alt keys are a bit wider. Along the top, the function keys are history and that’s okay because they don’t really have a lot of use on this machine, but they are replaced with keys for refresh, screen brightness, volume, etc. You’re not losing anything here. The caps lock key has been replaced with a search key which doesn’t bother me in the least, despite some groaning from the internet about this. The last major change to what’d you’d expect is one that bothers me though, there are no end, home, or delete keys. On my MacBook Pro, I’m used to being able to do fn-Delete for a right delete, but there doesn’t seem to be an equivalent here that I’ve found yet. Home and end can be achieved by holding down Ctrl and Alt while pressing up or down. It gets the job done, but there’s still a bit of oddball functionality loss (like being able to go to the beginning or end of a page) and annoyance here for someone who uses home and end a lot. Your average user won’t miss it, but being a software developer, I’m very used to needing to move around text quickly without the mouse. It’s become part of my everyday computer-usage. The only other negative about the keyboard is the lack of backlit keys. Though, to be fair, this isn’t really something that would be expected for this level of hardware, but it goes a long way when it’s there.

(Update: I actually took a look at the help article for all the keyboard shortcuts and the situation is much better than I originally feared. I think I’m good here…mostly.)

The trackpad is somewhat of a mixed bag. I like the feel of it under my fingers, it’s large and responsive. Not only does it feel much better than my Eee’s trackpad, but the two-finger scrolling is quick and responds well. It’s smooth instead of jerky like on the Eee. My experience here seems to be very different from most other reviews. Maybe it’s just that my expectations were for a similar experience to my Eee and not to my MacBook Pro. Anyway, you get a couple other gestures like pinch to zoom and you can do a two finger tap to right click–this doesn’t work very consistently. Unfortunately, you don’t get any three finger swipes like I’m in love with on my Mac for moving back and forward in a browser. Also, the trackpad gets very finicky when trying to select text. The best method I’ve found is to click the pad down and drag your finger while still holding it down. It works, but my hands never want to do that, they try to instead use a method more similar to what MacBooks allow–you can get away with using two fingers.

The 12″ screen is the right size and gives more resolution than a standard netbook, much nicer than the smaller screens on my most netbooks. My Eee is an 11″ model, but the extra inch makes a big difference here. Definitely worth the larger physical footprint. Additionally, it’s got a matte finish and is plenty bright. Unfortunately, that’s all I can say on the positive side for the screen. The contrast on this thing is horrible and I can’t find any adjustments for it yet. Everything feels very washed out and the vertical viewing angles are crap. There’s a very small angle that looks acceptable. Horizontal angles are quite a bit better though.

There are just a handful of ports on this thing. For what you’re going to use a cloud-only OS for, one USB port will get you by and the SD slot is nice to have, but of limited use to me since I’ll won’t be able to do any photo editing on this. Most people will be able to pop in a memory card from their camera and immediately start dumping to Picasa, Facebook, and Flickr. The machine comes with a VGA port instead of an HDMI port which is slightly disappointing. Granted, the machine doesn’t have the power to really drive HD content, but an HDMI port is a bit more useful these days than a VGA one is.

I haven’t been able to fully test the battery life yet, but it seems pretty solid. I think getting close to eight hours of life out of this thing could be a reality. The power brick is nice and small like you’d expect for a netbook so that’s nice, but I haven’t really kept it plugged in while using yet. Now that I think about it, it hasn’t seen AC power in over 48 hours and I’ve probably put four or five hours of use in since that charge. I’ve got 31% left right now. That kind of life puts the Cr-48 in the very good category. It’s more than my year and a half old MacBook Pro gets, but less than my fiancée’s 2010 MacBook and my Eee. Of course, those aren’t all fair comparisons.

Update: I forgot to mention the speakers, they’re located on the sides of the machine and get decently loud. They acceptably clear, but as would be expected, lack any bass at all.

Alright, so let’s get to the actual using it part. The Google Cr-48 is unlike using any other computer. It’s the first machine built for Google Chrome OS which attempts to make a pretty big statement in favor of computing solely in the cloud. If you think about it, most of your computer use is probably in your browser anyway and what isn’t can be moved there pretty easily.

When you turn the computer on, a cold boot takes about 15 seconds. This is the kind of thing anyone can get used to. If this is your first time using the machine, you are presented with a screen to login with your Google account. Once you put in your email and password, the computer snaps your picture and you’re off to gallivant around the internet as you please. If you use Google Chrome as your browser already and have the sync turned on, everything pulls down for you. You get your extensions, bookmarks, etc. From here on out, everything you do on the machine is in the cloud. If you use someone else’s Chrome OS machine, you’ll pick up right where you left off when you log in. When you first experience this, it’s pretty remarkable. You’ll love it.

When you close the lid, the computer almost instantly goes to sleep and when you open it back up, it’s on by the time you have the screen in position for use. You’ll love this too.

After you’re logged in, you get a Google Chrome window. That’s it. All you get is a web browser. The idea is that webapps can do everything for you. For most people, Google’s assumption (prayer, really) isn’t completely unattainable. Since Chrome OS really just lets you use a web browser, let’s talk about that. If you’re a Google Chrome (the browser) user already, you’ll feel right at home.

The browsing experience on the Cr-48 is very good. It has to be, this is all it has. Just about everything about the browsing experience is a smoother than on my Eee, but significantly slower than on my MacBook Pro or my Windows 7 desktop. There are some caveats though, flash performance leaves a bit to be desired. An Intel Atom with integrated graphics just doesn’t cut it. Low resolution videos play fine, but even 480p videos start to get a little choppy. Something that I think is a little odd is that YouTube videos don’t give you the option of 720p or 1080p. The options just don’t show. In reality, this is probably a smart move on Google’s front because I don’t think this machine would handle it very well, but therein lies the problem. Google thinks and wants the future of computing to be entirely in the cloud and media is continuing to become a bigger and bigger part of the online experience. On top of that, HD is becoming more and more important…even for video on the web. How could Google ship a machine to show off their new OS that doesn’t play HD video from their own video site? Granted, this is not a production machine–you will never be able to buy it, it’s sort of like beta hardware–, the OS is still in beta and not at v1.0 yet, and the OS is built on Linux and Adobe’s Linux support for Flash is awful.  Still, to not even allow HD video is pretty crappy. This needs to get fixed before Chrome OS can be sold with production machines.

That’s all I’ve got for now, I’m still fiddling around with this thing and trying to find some hidden stuff. I haven’t tried developer mode yet, but I’ll get to that soon.

The verdict

Factoring in that this is not production hardware and this is a beta OS still, I like the Cr-48 a lot. There are some glaring flaws here, but the overall experience is very positive. I like what Google is doing here, but like many (even former Google employee and the creator of Google) have questioned, what is the long term plan for Google Chrome OS? How will it not get swallowed up by Android which offers more and could pull off what Chrome OS offers.

For a lot of people, I think this could be all they need, but it could never be a main computer for me. My music and video libraries are way too large to be moved into the cloud in the foreseeable future and without being able to play media over my network here without setting up my server to stream via the web, Chrome OS is leaving me high and dry. Additionally, I practically live and breathe Adobe Lightroom and without being able to run that, I need something else. No webapp anytime soon will be able to take over editing of RAW files. They’re just too big to to work with via the web right now. Javascript and the internet as a whole have come a long way, but not that far. Unfortunately, this not only prevents the Cr-48 from making it as my main computer, but also prevents the it from being able to replace my Eee.

For 95% of netbook users, this could do it for them, but I need my Lightroom. I’m not going to lie, Adobe Lightroom on a netbook isn’t the best experience, but it runs and with a little patience can get you by while you’re away from home. It’s nice to have a cheap computer that I don’t need to worry about yet can still run Lightroom while I’m on vacation. When I’m away, I can dump a days’ worth of photos on there and at least start tagging them and even get some of the basic editing done. If I could do that on here, my Eee would go up for sale.

The bottom line here is still a very big like. Even though I now have six computers to my name, this one will get a solid amount of use. My MacBook Pro won’t be replaced and my Eee will still come with me when I travel, but this will be nice for browsing on the couch or in bed.

Megamind is the second of two CGI movies this year that focus their story around the villain instead of the hero. The first was Despicable Me which didn’t really have a “good guy” per se, but was pretty awesome. Megamind is a little different though in that there is a good guy who is much like Superman. We don’t care about him though. We follow the Lex Luger of the story and are instantly tricked into falling in love with him while being convince that Metro Man, our supposed hero, is actually a bit of a cocky showoff.

Megamind follows a bit of a different path than your average superhero movie. Instead of good always winning, we find out what happens when the bad guy wins and there is no longer is a superhero to stop him from running rampant. Much like a spoiled child, Megamind becomes bored and unfulfilled after having everything he’s ever wanted. With no one to fight back, he finds his life almost meaningless. So, he creates a new superhero to replace Metro Man. You can imagine how that quickly goes awry and the tables get turned. As you knew was going to happen all along, Megamind gets shoved across the line over to the good side.

Megamind is solid flick overall that seems to have more to offer adults than it does children as there are references all over the place to superhero movies of yesterday. We’re presented with a solid idea that is executed very well. The film maintains a level of sophistication and depth while still handing out plenty of laughs. The focus is more on story than action, which is awesome.

One of the best things about Megamind is that we get something very solid from Will Ferrell. Dude’s been pretty hit or miss recently, but lending his voice for animated films may be a good route for him to go. Jonah Hill and David Cross are so much themselves that you almost forget they’re playing characters and just kind of start to see them up there on the screen. This is a great thing for David Cross and a pretty okay thing for Jonah Hill.

Rating: A

You wouldn’t expect a movie about Facebook to be too good, but this thing has been getting a lot of hype for months and months. Honestly, it’s deserved, The Social Network is solid. It’s got sex, drugs, nerds, and douchebaggery, what else are you looking for?

In all seriousness, The Social Network is a terrific movie. It’s not entirely what I expected. I mean, it mostly is, but I was expecting Mark Zuckerberg to be portrayed much more negatively. I had heard a lot beforehand that the film painted a very negative image of him, but I didn’t think that was the case at all. He wasn’t made out to be the best dude ever, but he wasn’t that bad either. The worst thing about him wasn’t so much that took someone else’s idea and ran with a much better version of it, but that he easily let himself get sucked into Sean Parker’s ideals and turned his back on his best friend. Mostly, the dude just worked a lot towards a very particular vision and stopped at nothing to make it a reality. Maybe I just wanted him to be shown as more of a dick because I’m not a fan of him in real life. Don’t get me wrong, I like Facebook and I’m obviously grateful for its existence, but things he has said and his general status towards privacy are a bit upsetting. I think the dude is nothing short of one of the smartest people in tech right now, but I think he’s kind of a douche. Actually, just about everyone in this movie is shown in a rather douchetastic light.

Everything about the way The Social Network was put together is terrifically done. The movie is shot very well and the dialog is great, especially the opening sequence. Jesse Eisenberg, as always, was awesome. He seems like the perfect fit to play Zuckerberg…he even looks a little like him. I didn’t even realize until after the movie that the same dude played both the Winklevosses–to be honest, I didn’t even realize it on my own. I guess it was pretty obvious and I somehow just missed it.

The Social Network is just a great film that is very well put together and describes a very interesting story. For those of us that are of the age to be able to remember college both with and without (widespread) social networking, this is a great story about the creation of something that has become so ubiquitous in our lives now that we don’t even think twice about it or what life was like before it. The idea seems so simple now, but The Social Network is a reminder it wasn’t always that obvious. The story isn’t entirely true, but it also seems that it’s also not completely untrue either.

Rating: A