divergio

Kindle 4 vs Kingle Touch

2012-01-23T19:50:00+08:00

I’ve never owned an e-ink reader, though I’ve wanted to for a long time. Every few years I check the E-book reader matrix to see what the state of the art is. In the past I might have been an early adopter, but the expense and performance of early systems wasn’t enough to convince me to try them. Until now I was able to make do with the Kindle app on my first generation iPad, and of course physical books.

But finally, the price of the Kindle was so low that I decided to take the plunge. Touch sounds like a great idea, but according to trusted internet authorities the touch implementation was clunky. Combined with a review which poked my nostalgia button by describing the Kindle 4 as something out of Star Trek because of how lightweight it was, my decision was sealed and I ordered the Kindle 4.

Talk about first world problems, but I immediately had buyers remorse upon receiving my Kindle 4. It feels like a great product, but some of the things that were so easy to do with the iPad app were difficult using the Kindle 4’s buttons. I ordered a Kindle Touch and decided to compare the two.

Background

You should read this if:

You’ve decided on a Kindle, for whatever reason (you’re tied in to Amazon, you like Amazon’s selection, whatever)
You’re trying to decide between the Kindle Touch and the Kindle 4

Briefly, I’ll give my justification for those two requirements.

I’m using Amazon because I’m already used to buying books on Amazon, and they have support across all platforms. I can’t see a compelling reason to use iBooks or Nook or some other platform when Amazon seems like the most reliable and seems to have the best selection. Amazon is king, and they’re the one I most expect to be around in ten years. When we’re talking about DRM’ed eBooks, that matters.

I’ve been impressed with their iPad app, and I even read a few whole novels on my iPad when I was unable to buy them because I was overseas. The iPad reading experience was surprisingly good, but I’ve still sought a dedicated device using e-ink because it is better on the eyes and better for reading lengthy text.

I would choose the Touch or 4 over the Kindle Keyboard because I don’t think any ebook readers are good for taking notes, and I think the keyboard is just extra weight and and a waste of space for something I’m reading on only. I’ve also only looked at the wi-fi ones because I don’t see any reason to get the 3G, and I travel overseas where I don’t even think the 3G works anyway.

Continuing…

After receiving the Kindle Touch, I immediately noticed two shortcomings. First, looking up definitions for words is a hastle. Second, viewing footnotes is a pain.

I was used to very easily looking up definitions on the Kindle app for iPad. I’m still learning new words all of the time, and if I’m reading a challenging book I often want to see definitions. On the iPad, it was a matter of holding your finger over the word for a second, and then seeing a definition appear at the bottom of the screen. The Kindle Touch isn’t much faster than the Kindle 4 for looking up definitions, but it is easier. Just put your finger on the word and the definition will pop up. I don’t like that it pops up. The popup has to be closed manually, and I would prefer if the definition just shows up in the same way as the Kindle 4 or the iPad, but the ease of use of touching the word is a huge advantage over the flurry of button presses to navigate to the correct line and word on the Kindle 4. It’s not that difficult, but the additional hassle quickly makes you more reluctant to look up definitions.

Footnotes are implemented differently in different eBooks. Some publishers do a terrible job and don’t embed links for the footnote numbers. In this case, the Kindle 4 or Touch are both equally handicapped. However, if the publishers do a better job and make each footnote a link to a footnote section, then the Touch works much better. You just put your finger over the footnote, and it jumps back to the appropriate section. To go back, you bring up the menu and press the back button. Using the touch screen to perform this operation is a little troublesome because of the delay, and I think it could still stand to be improved in terms of usability. Nonetheless, the situation is an improvement over the Kindle 4, where in the same manner as the definitions you must select the footnote using the jog switch.

Conclusion

My only reservations with the Touch are that it feels very much like a first generation product. Whereas the Kindle 4 is a beautiful, stripped down and perfected fourth generation minimalist e-ink reader, the Kindle Touch is an awkward first revision. They wanted to go all out with the touch capability, but I still think the physical page turning buttons are a necessity on an e-reader. They crammed in a bunch of additional features (double battery life, music player, text to speech) which I don’t think are necessary in an e-reader. The bezel is deeper to make room for the touch sensing, which makes it feel less polished. The result is something which is noticeably heavier and feels clunkier to navigate.

My ideal Kindle would strip out as many of the extraneous features that the Touch offers in order to become more like the Kindle 4 (lightweight, physical buttons for page turning), but keeping the touch screen for definitions and footnotes. I’m hoping this is what Amazon does for their second generation Kindle Touch.

So, in summation, I think that if you would potentially read a nonfiction book or a book with a lot of footnotes, or if you are the kind who often looks up word definitions, then the Kindle Touch, despite its flaws, will serve you better.

If you are just reading novels and rarely look up words, the Kindle 4 will work fine, and, because it weighs less and is more polished, will feel more like the future.

Missing Google Reader Sharing

2011-11-06T14:51:00+08:00

I really liked Google Reader’s share functionality because it made it very easy for my close friends and me to share links between each other. We were all “following” each other on Reader.

Before Google Reader

Before Google Reader, the old way of reading a shared link went something like this:

Come across the link on Facebook or Twitter or plain old e-mail
Be forced to make a decision on if you wanted to read it now or later
If later, you had manually add it into your own reading system (Instapaper, read it later)

This process is too active because the other person has to look for the link and then take some direct action to put it in their system.

The Old Google Reader

In contrast, the old Google reader system was passive. If you chose to follow me, then all my links came to you and were already in the reading system you were used to (and maybe you had keyboard shortcuts and iPhone apps to support it).

That system was, unfortunately, locked to Google Reader, but most of my friends were using Google Reader so it wasn’t a problem.

The New (not Improved) Way

Google recently redesigned Reader and tore out all of the old sharing functionality and replaced it with a poor visual design and some hacked on Google+ sharing features which they assumedly would prefer us to use.

If I really wanted to share my links with Google+ I would have already been sharing the links through Twitter or Facebook. Nevermind your feelings about Google+ as a social network, it is not a replacement for the previous Reader functionality. The previous sharing functionality put articles shared by friends directly into our reading system, and didn’t force a task change between “skimming social network” and “reading RSS feeds” which the new system does.

This change has understandly upset a lot of people who loved the previous functionality.

Solutions

I tried to craft a solution using a Tumblr blog to create an RSS of a list of links, but that doesn’t solve one of the most critical features: full text RSS feeds could be shared with full text. This was zero-friction reading (combined with zero friction sharing with a single share button), and worked with peoples caching iPhone/Android Google Reader apps. Unless I manually copy and paste the text and repost it on my own site (which is questionable from a copyright standpoint), I can’t replicate this functionality.

The Future

We could wait for a competitor to come out with a new RSS feed service that offers the kind of sharing Google Reader had. This isn’t really satisfying, though, because I’ve already paid for a nice Google Reader iPhone app, and because the website works fine except for the crappier sharing functionality. Also, I don’t want to have to convince all my friends to jump ship.

I think the best solution we can hope for is that Google further integrates Google+ with Reader. Add a tab to Google Reader that lets you browse your friend’s Google+ posts as if they’re RSS feeds.

This wouldn’t please everybody. Some peoples’ use of Reader share functionality apparently isn’t replicable using Circles. For me, though, I’ve got no problem using Google+’s circle metaphor to create a sharing circle. I just want to read the shares in Google Reader, not as links in a stream of status updates.

The Joy of Podcasts: Android or Non-Apple Tech Podcasts

2011-10-10T22:04:00+08:00

You may have noticed that the bulk of the technology podcasts I listen to are focused on Apple. I admit my strong interest in all things Apple. I use their products and hope to build a career on them.

However, upon realizing that all of the podcasts I listen to are Apple analysis (though they often discuss other parts of the mobile space), I wanted to find some views from the other side.

I went in search of podcasts about Android or non-Apple mobile technology, if only to check my biases and make sure my vision doesn’t become constrained. I wanted to find something like an Android or Windows Mobile version of Marco Arment or John Siracusa. I wanted someone with strong opinions they were willing to defend and someone who would recap recent news stories and provide industry analysis, but less focused on Apple and more focused on the other companies in the tech industry.

I asked Android developer friends and searched rather exhaustively. I ended up finding a few different shows:

This Week in Tech: Okay, but kind of boring.
This Week in Google: Same.
Motodev: Too technical, not what I’m looking for.
All About Android: stopped after five minutes, too chatty.
Android Central Podcast: see below.

I listened to an entire episode of Android Central podcast. I wasn’t very impressed with the analysis or attitude. They seemed noncommital and nonjudgmental for too many things. They were unwilling to state an opinion and defend it, and more likely to equivocate as compared to the 5by5 hosts who are willing to call a spade a spade and point out when something is poorly designed and unlikely to be used or appreciated by most people.

For example, in the episode I listened to no one was willing to say anything bad about the failed HP Touch Pad. No one would state the obvious that it probably isn’t a very good idea to buy a device which is unlikely to be supported in the future, and that it doesn’t make much sense to buy another gadget just to have it lying around the house (an attitude I grew out of years ago).

The one exception is the occasional co-host who has a strong anti-Apple stance, but in the episode I listened to they just dismissed Apple and didn’t defend their reasons for doing so.

This podcast also seemed to adopt the “pile on the host” podcasting philosophy which I mentioned earlier. They had a bunch of guys in the episode but none of them were memorable or seemed particularly insightful. The same criticisms apply to a lesser extent to Leo Laporte’s podcasts (the first two listed). I found them okay but not interesting enough to keep me coming back.

Maybe I am so trapped in Apple’s “reality distortion field” that these podcasts are actually full of mature, insightful analysis and I just can’t see it. Maybe, for whatever reason, there is just less market for this kind of podcast in the non-Apple world, or there aren’t enough charismatic defenders of other companies’ mobile products.

If anyone has some further recommendations I’m open to trying out some other technology podcasts. Maybe if Metro is a hit some Microsoft-focused mobile podcasts will emerge.

In the end, this is a bit of a trick post. After all that searching, I didn’t find any Android podcasts to permanently add to my lineup. The Arment or Siracusa of the non-Apple world either doesn’t exist or hasn’t emerged.

This completes my series of posts about my favorite podcasts. I hope this has been useful to some people out there.

Goodbye, Steve.

2011-10-06T11:42:00+08:00

When Steve Jobs resigned, a lot of us still had hopes that it was temporary. We hoped maybe he would recover and, maybe even a short time later, come back to Apple energized and ready to share some more magic.

Of course, this was wishful thinking. It seems now that Steve understood his fate and stepped down in August to spend time with his family and to help prepare Apple to stand alone.

As a jaded cynic born in the 80s, I never had many heroes. Those I did have were technologists: Elon Musk, K. Eric Drexler, John Carmack.

I discovered Apple pretty late. I never owned an Apple II. My only experiences with Apple products were on the underpowered school computers and the silly technicolor clamshell Macs in my high school computer science class. At that time I felt like Macs were underpowered, with a UI like a toy computer. Besides, I played video games and the only proper operating system for a gamer was Windows 98 or Windows XP.

In my senior year of college all this changed. A few close friends of mine were switching to Apple. I was able to try out their machines and they explained what they liked about them. I was impressed with the build quality and attention to detail. I wasn’t much of a gamer any more, so the underpowered graphics weren’t much of a concern. In my programming classes I had come to respect the power of UNIX-like systems, and I was impressed that OS X was built on BSD.

My laptop was due for an upgrade, so in a short time I went from having no Apple products to being an iPod touch carrying Macbook user.

As a gadget geek, I had owned Windows Mobile and Palm devices in the past. I even relied on an ancient Windows Mobile PDA for my Chinese dictionary. Of course, I had played around with its browser and mail client in the past, but they were such a pain to use that I eventually disabled them all in order to increase the performance of the dictionary. Mobile devices seemed like toys, fun to try out but too irritating to actually be useful day-to-day.

As I saw the iPhone blossom and experienced the increasing utility of the iPod touch, my skepticism about the value of mobile computing disappeared.

Soon enough, I was working to convert my friends and family to Macs and iPhones, not only for their own experience but also to make it easier for me to provide (or not have to provide) technical support.

I started checking Apple news sites daily, subscribing to Apple podcasts, and envisioning a career where Apple products are a central focus.

In that short space of three years, Steve Jobs became a hero to me. An exemplar of a true visionary: a man who, seeing in his mind a world which doesn’t exist, through his actions brought his vision closer to reality.

We’ve lost a great man, an inspiring man. He brought us a long way. Let’s all try to go farther.

The Joy of Podcasts: Apple-related Podcasts

2011-10-03T23:42:00+08:00

As someone very interested in mobile computing, I follow a lot of Apple related blogs. In the past few months I’ve started listening to more and more Apple-related podcasts. I’ve compiled a list of my favorites here.

Build and Analyze

Run time: over an hour, less than two hours.

This is an excellent podcast hosted by Marco Arment and Dan Benjamin. Ostensibly it’s about the world of iOS development and mobile devices, but the hosts stray into all manner of topics. I originally listened to this because of its focus on iOS development and because I had used the main host Marco Arment’s excellent Instapaper service and app. Then I discovered the podcast through his equally excellent blog. Now I just like listening to the guy talk and finding out his opinion on whatever they feel like talking about.

Hypercritical

Run time: usually less than an hour and a half.

Another podcast from the 5by5 network. Once you start listening to one you hear the hosts mentioning the other podcasts because many of them listen to each other.

This podcast is hosted by John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin, perhaps best known for his lengthy and thorough reviews of each new OS X release on Ars Technica.

Siracusa offers good analysis of the mobile space with an Apple focus. He’s also a geek and sometimes they talk about home theater or Star Wars or other various geeky topics.

One of my favorite episodes demonstrating Siracusa’s take on business strategy in the technology world is episode 31 where they discuss HP’s exit from the PC business and the effect of that move on Microsoft. It’s a bit dated now that Amazon’s device is revealed to be running an Android fork, but they talk about the pros and cons of Amazon potentially buying webOS to use for their new tablet.

The Critical Path

Run time: less than an hour.

Listening to Horace Dediu makes me feel like an industry insider. He’s got a lot of insightful analysis of technology companies and the phone and mobile space. He’s a bit more serious than the other hosts on 5by5, and he leverages his experience in the industry to give keen insights.

He writes on his blog Asymco, but those posts tend to be more about numbers and financials. On the podcast he has more business and strategy analysis. He is apparently actually a go-to guy for a lot of heavyweight publications when they want opinions on the telecom and mobile industries, so I feel grateful to get his time and analysis basically for free.

The Talk Show

Run time: nearly two hours.

This show is hosted by Dan Benjamin and John Gruber of Daring Fireball fame. The content is similar to Hypercritical and Build and Analyze. They are usually discussing the same topics, but with slightly different perspectives.

Depending on when Apple news comes out one of these podcasts will get the first chance to comment, and then the others will have their own unique, usually complementary, take on recent events. This is the main reason I like to listen to all of them. I actually rank Gruber’s show last in the Apple podcasts, because personally I like Siracusa’s or Arment’s speaking style more, but you ought to give him a try if you are interested.

An aside about 5by5

All of the previous few podcasts are co-hosted by Dan Benjamin, who runs the 5by5 network. Dan Benjamin is a really likeable guy and he’s clearly very skilled at running such a successful podcast network. However, I have some reservations about his role on a lot of the shows. I can’t count the number of times that as an audience member I understood exactly what one of the hosts was saying when Dan would make some kind of off-topic remark that didn’t much advance the conversation.

In my opinion he is most in his element talking to Merlin Mann or Horace Dediu, but when placed beside John Gruber, John Siracusa, or especially Marco Arment, sometimes I get frustrated when he sidetracks the host too much. I don’t question his credentials as a long time Mac user and developer, but he has trouble keeping up with some of his co-hosts.

I still believe in the strength of his two or one host style. So many of the podcasts I tried listening to on other networks try to pile on half a dozen hosts to try to cover up the fact that none of them are strong enough to host the show alone. The result is too much chatter, and rarely anything interesting is said.

I think his role is to highlight and complement the main host and to keep them talking. When he strays from this role he can be a distraction, but not enough to cause me to discontinue listening to any of these shows.

However, when he was on his hiatus and Merlin Mann took over for him on “The Talk Show,” it brought this problem into sharp contrast. John Gruber is normally pretty staid and unenthusiastic, but with Merlin he was excited and animated and they ended up talking for over two hours.

This particular anecdote may not be a fair comparison. Merlin Mann is one of the most charismatic characters on the internet, and he was put in a new situation for a one-off show. Maybe if he had to do it every week it wouldn’t be quite so exciting. Also, with Merlin they got way off topic and ended up talking for over two hours about many strange topics. This is good, sometimes, but maybe Dan is better at keeping the hosts more focused on the specialty of the podcast.

Nevertheless, to me it was one of the most entertaining episodes of the Talk Show in recent memory. At the very least it should give Dan Benjamin pause to contemplate his role on some of his shows. Giving that show a listen (which he still hasn’t, according to Merlin’s recent show), might give him ideas about how to make his excellent shows even better.

I hope this list has been useful. Look forward to an addendum about Android podcasts next week.

The Joy of Podcasts: General Interest

2011-09-29T00:03:00+08:00

This is the first in a small series of posts about my favorite podcasts. I first began listening to podcasts as a way of keeping up with the news on my bus commute to an internship in Houston. Before ever being interested in technology podcasts, I listened to news and culture podcasts. I’ve added some more in recent years, but some of these I’ve been listening to for quite some time.

I describe these as general interest because they aren’t technology focused and they should appeal to any curious audience.

This American Life

Run time: about 60 minutes.

“This American Life” is hard to describe. They take a variety of stories from place in or related to America, and organized around a theme depending on the show. Sometimes, though, they’ll do a whole show following just one story.

Hosted by Ira Glass, this show is always entertaining and oftentimes informative. I look forward to it every week and I listen to it regardless of whether I have a commute or not. It also helps me feel a little bit more connected to the US when I am abroad.

I recommend this podcast without reservation to all audiences.

BBC Global News

Run time: less than 30 minutes.

For international news source I rely primary on the BBC World Service. The Global News podcast is compiled twice a day, so whatever time zone I am in there is usually a recent one available. The only exception is on weekends, when it’s not published.

The key thing to know is that Global News is just the highlights from other BBC shows. It’s short and sweet and to the point on different news stories. If you only have time for one news podcast and you want to get up to date with what is going on in the world in less than 30 minutes, this is the podcast.

If you have more time, want to hear longer interviews, or need a news podcast on the weekend, I recommend the related podcast from the World Service, BBC Newshour.

NPR Intelligence Squared

Run time: less than hour.

Billed as “Oxford-style debating on this side of the Atlantic,” this podcast is recordings of live debates on various contentious topics related to modern American life.

They only come out about once a month (or less), but they’re usually quite interesting and very informative. Past topics have included: * “Is the Two-Party System Making U.S. Ungovernable?” * “Should Airports Use Racial And Religious Profiling?” * “Is Islam a Religion Of Peace?”

Other Podcasts

For whatever reason these podcasts aren’t listed as my top recommendations, but I still listen to them.

They are for the most part still top notch, but might be less reliable week-to-week (i.e. the occasional bad episode). I might also only listen to them occasionally when I’ve run out of the main ones. For others, I might still be giving them a chance to impress me.

Back to Work

Run Time: around an hour.

I’m still not quite sure what this podcast is about. Merlin Mann is really famous from his days, now behind him (deliberately, on his part), as a productivity guru. They talk about work/life balance stuff, philosophy of work, etc. I had this in the Apple-focused podcast post but I’ve moved it back to general interest, because though they both like Apple they don’t talk about it that much.

Listening to this podcast I often have some epiphany about how I’m doing my work or making decisions. It’s also quite entertaining, mainly because Merlin Mann is an intensely likeable and very funny guy. The only reason this podcast isn’t in my top recommended section is because I’m still not sure what the podcast is even about. It seems like sometimes they ramble on forever. I still enjoy it, and I’m giving it a chance to win me over, but I prefer my other Apple podcasts more (to be revealed in a later post).

On The Media

Run time: less than an hour.

On The Media is quality analysis of media bias. Each show takes an investigative approach around one topic. I’m not sure why I put this in the “other podcasts” section. When I switched podcast programs I think I forgot to add this, so I just haven’t listened to it in a while. I would definitely give this a try, especially if you are interested in any of their topics.

Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!

Run time: less than an hour.

This is a quiz show from NPR. It’s usually pretty funny, but sometimes I don’t get the jokes because I’m not hooked into the 24 hour news cycle in the US (many of the questions are related to the news of the week, and it’s usually US-centric). They get political and entertainment figures on the show, sometimes, and they are usually pretty funny. This is something to try out and see if you like the format.

Check out the next in the series, my Apple-related podcast recommendations.

The Joy of Podcasts

2011-09-26T02:02:00+08:00

I’ve compiled a list of my favorite podcasts.

Every once and a while I move somewhere where I have a long daily commute. Suddenly I have a much higher demand in my life for audio content. I have listened to some audio books, but I usually can’t focus on nonfiction audio books while commuting. Also, shorter segments like podcasts can help give a sense of finality to a commute, instead of leaving you excited to continue like an audio book might.

I can understand if you don’t get podcasts or think podcasts are for those other people. Podcasts are probably less efficient as a way of receiving information for most people, because most can read faster than they listen and many podcasts have a lot of extra banter.

On the other hand, in the case of some of these podcasts you get additional thoughts and get to borrow more of these peoples’ time than you would be able to if you only read their blog posts. They don’t write blog posts for every topic they think about, and it’s much easier for them to communicate these thoughts in the informal atmosphere of a podcast.

In that spirit, I have compiled a list of my favorite podcasts. Originally it was one post but the list went on so long that I have split it into sections.

Here is the list:

Note: The title is a play on The Joy of Sex or The Joy of Cooking, but I noticed I wasn’t the only one to think of it, including some people who like the same podcasts as I do.

Finding Things in Hong Kong: Vietnamese Coffee Brewer

2011-09-25T00:39:00+08:00

Vietnamese Iced Cofee Brewer

Finding things in Hong Kong is easy, as long as you know where to look. Knowing where to look is the hard part.

Things in Hong Kong are often sold in concentrated areas. There aren’t many general stores where you can get everything, instead there is something like a street devoted to selling bathroom fixtures, or a building with dozens of computer parts stores. There also is very little online shopping.

If you’re trying to get something, it’s a question of finding out if this cluster of stores exists for the thing you’re looking for. For example, I thought Hong Kong had very poor selection of headphones, because in my computer market (the one I go to is in Mong Kok) they only had crappy brands and poor selection. Later I found out that actually headphones aren’t sold at the computer market, and that there is another market a few blocks away specializing in headphones that had all of the brands I wanted.

It’s difficult to determine which cluster the thing you’re looking for is in, if that cluster even exists, and where it is located. Sometimes there is only a vague, outdated post on Geoexpat. So, when, after much searching, I find the location of an obscure item, I sometimes like to give back to the global internetworking knowledgesphere by writing a post about it.

I’ve been enjoying Vietnamese food since freshman year of college in Houston. There is a Little Saigon area of Houston with a ton of excellent pho restaurants, and I often went there to enjoy a bowl of delicious rice noodle soup.

My favorite beverage to enjoy with these is Vietnamese Iced Coffee. This is served by bringing out a miniature, single-serving metal coffee brewer/filter. This is placed over the cup and hot water is allowed to drip through the ground beans and turn into coffee. This is mixed with ice and sweetened condense milk to make a delicious drink.

After introducing a friend in Hong Kong to pho, she said she really loved the the way they made the coffee and wanted to try making it like that in her apartment. As the experienced Hong Kong expat, I set out on a mission to find the required miniature coffee brewer.

I tried all of the usual methods for finding cheap appliances: Japan Home, wet markets, City Super, and various Japanese department stores. All of these methods failed, and I was about to give up. That is, until yesterday, when while walking around in Yau Ma Tei we spotted a restaurant supply store. The supply store had knives and pots and pans and all of the equipment you needed to open a new restaurant, but most special of all they had the Vietnamese coffee brewer. I can’t remember the exact Chinese name, I think it was called “越南滴漏咖啡壺.”

We comparison shopped the surrounding area and found that the whole area was full of restaurant supply stores, and a good portion of them had the coffee brewer. The prices are similar to what I found on websites in the US. They ranged from 42 HKD for the smallest, lowest quality one up to 200 HKD for a nicely polished, luxury one. There were kinds with screw-down insert and also kinds with a gravity insert, kinds with a handle, and kinds with the weird plastic stubs on each side. We settled on a 65 HKD one which had good capacity and reasonable quality (the company was Tantiendat).

To find this “restaurant supply” cluster go to Yau Ma Tei station and take exit C. Then walk west on Man Ming Lane until you hit Shanghai Street. Then you can just wander up and down Shanghai Street looking at the various stores.

The location is Yau Ma Tei (油麻地) district on Shanghai Street (上海街) centered around Man Ming Lane (文明里).

View Larger Map

Those looking for baking supplies (especially for baking cakes), quality knives, and all kinds of pots and pans might also find what they are looking for in this district.

HK Apple Store Opening

2011-09-24T21:21:00+08:00

The brochure they handed out at the entrance

Today, the International Financial Center mall location Apple store on Hong Kong island has opened.

It’s not difficult to get Apple products in Hong Kong. You can order from the Apple store, you can get an iPhone from the wireless companies, or you can get them from various retailers throughout the territory.

Even when Apple products had delayed releases in Hong Kong, it was always possible to get grey market products almost immediately, albeit at a steep markup. In fact, impatient for the arrival of the iPad I bought an Australian one from a small retailer in 2010.

Before today, if you wanted to see new Apple computers in person you could find many small “Apple-style” stores in computer markets across Hong Kong. They didn’t claim to be official Apple stores, but they sold only Apple products and usually had glass windows and nice displays.

As Apple opened stores in Shanghai and Beijing, Hong Kongers could be forgiven for feeling a bit jealous of their mainland compatriots. It was easy to get Apple products in Hong Kong, but Hong Kong still lacked it’s own official, physical Apple presence. At long last, however, the wait is over.

I didn’t wait in line or even try to show up early in the morning. As much of an Apple enthusiast as I am, I didn’t think it worth lining up merely for the opening of a new store as compared to the release of a new product. I rolled into the store later in the evening around 7:30 PM.

At that time there was no line to get into the store but the store was still busy and nearly full. As cynical as I am, the atmosphere of joy and excitement was contagious. At the entrance there was a gauntlet of chanting Apple store staff giving high fives to entering customers. Inside, there were dozens of each kind of product, and it wasn’t hard to find an available device to play with. There was good, upbeat music in the background (I heard Led Zep’s “Ramble On”), and there were many employees wandering around and looking for people to help.

The entrance gauntlet.

The store was busy.

There were almost as many security personnel in black shirts as there were staff. Earlier in the day they may have been more necessary for crowd control, or perhaps Apple or the mall administration was actually concerned about possible security problems. I don’t know if this is typical of Apple store openings elsewhere. Despite the huge security presence it didn’t feel overbearing. They just stood against the walls and at the exits, and I didn’t see them speak to anyone or discourage anyone from doing anything.

I overheard a few exchanges between Apple store staff and customers, and they seemed as knowledgeable and helpful as I’ve come to expect elsewhere. I doubt Apple had much trouble finding people enthusiastic about Apple products in Hong Kong, and I’m sure the staff had been well trained.

I talked to one of them and asked about how they were selling the iPhone’s. They were selling them alone or with contracts on Hong Kong CSL. He asked if I wanted one so I took my iPhone 4 out of my pocket and showed him that I already had one. I told him I was an iPhone developer and that I lived in Hong Kong, so I wanted to check out the new store. He said he had met another app developer earlier in the day who had iOS 5 on his phone, to which I replied by showing him that mine, also, had iOS 5 installed. He tried to sell me a computer or an iPad, but I told him I already had my Apple purchases planned out (iPad with retina display in the spring, etc.) He saidI should come back some time.

I read online that they had given T-shirts to the first 5000 visitors. The employee said that they ran out of those in the first couple hours.

The store itself is two stories, with a central entrance on the bottom floor. Each floor is split into two areas, and the two floors are connected by a large spiral staircase. The bottom floor had Macbooks on the left side and iOS and iPod devices on the right side. On the top floor there were accessories and genius bars on the right side, and Apple one-on-one teaching stations and purchasing areas on the left side. The top floor has two exits, one on each side.

Some kids playing Lego Star Wars

The presentation and organization was almost flawless, and as I said the atmosphere was very upbead. However, in John Siracusa style, I did notice a couple problems.

First, they were using iPad’s to give product information. This seems like a cool idea, because pricing and specifications can be updated without having to print out a new information sheet, and also because the customer can explore the iPad menu to find more information about the product. It also helps with cross-promotion, because the customer gets exposure to the iPad.

Confusing display.

There is one problem with the iPad as product information system: When I first saw the display I thought the product was the iPad, and I was confused as to why they had locked down its interface to make other apps inaccessible. Only after wandering around and looking at other displays did I realize that the iPad was only there to provide information about the iPhone or about the iPod touch. I think the issue is that the iPad’s large, bright display was being used to sell much smaller products (even the iPod nano). My attention was immediately captured by the iPad, and I barely noticed the presence of the iPod touch. When I saw the same sales tactic being used with the Macbooks or iMacs it made a lot more sense. For those, the product wasn’t overshadowed by the information system.

Those are a lot of Apples.

The second problem was with the dock connector. The iPhone’s and iPod touches were connected to the tables by their dock connectors. They weren’t placed in a standard dock, instead there was some kind of translucent assembly around the connector. Before seeing store staff disconnect one from it’s connector, I thought maybe this was an anti-theft device, and I was uncertain about removing the the iPhone from its position. Using a more familiar dock might make this more apparent.

I’m still a little skeptical of the necessity of global Apple retail store expansion. Maybe, as a power-user, I underestimate the usefulness of a single point of contact for support and training. Regardless, the Apple store is a wonderful showcase for Apple products, and as a person living in Hong Kong I look forward to more store openings (perhaps Causeway Bay Times Square, or somewhere in Tsim Sha Tsui?) in the future.

A beacon of hope in an otherwise barren landscape of boring technology companies.

Finding Things in Hong Kong: Body Fat Analyzer

2011-09-01T02:02:00+08:00

I was curious about starting a new exercise program in Hong Kong, but first I needed an important tool so I could quantify my progress.

Body fat analyzers are useful if you are starting a new weight loss or exercise program, because weight gain or loss only tells half the story. If you’re trying to gain weight but not paying attention to fat percentage, you might just be getting fatter and not more muscular. Likewise, if your weight loss slow but your body fat percentage goes down, you may still be making a lot of progress.

Though they aren’t as accurate as ones using other methods, the bioelectrical impedance-based models are the cheapest and easiest to use at home. If you take the measurement under the same conditions (especially the amount of water you’ve consumed, for example in the morning after urinating), you can at least expect reasonable accuracy measuring the trend of your body fat percentage. The objective value of the reading is pretty much useless, however, so don’t try to compare readings taken with other methods.

If you’re looking for a body fat analyzer in Hong Kong you might have some difficulty, especially if you’re relying on English language resources only. For whatever reason, if you want a blood pressure monitor you can find it at almost any electronics store, but for a body fat analyzer you’re going to be searching all day to try to find anything.

Fortunately, I did most of the searching already.

I started out with a search on Geoexpat, and went from there. I’ve determined the following possibilities:

As spotted on Hong Kong GeoExpat forums, Wing On department store has a number of Tanita scales. You can see the various model’s on Wing On’s website. I can attest that the TST East location had a few models. They sell for around 800 HKD, you can see some of the prices on the website.

I’m not sure about the relative accuracy of the scale type that measure impedance through your feet. They have the advantage that they weigh you at the same time, so you don’t have to input your weight.

I found a single scale type of unknown brand at Broadway electronics store in Mong Kok. It was on the top floor and was quite expensive, something like 1200 HKD.
I think that various small medical instrument supply stores througout the city may carry lesser known brands with more of the scale-type body fat analyzers. I ran into one such place, Hong Yee Medical Instrument Co., whiile walking along Nathan Road. I think they might have had this model. I don’t remember the price, but I think it was cheaper than the Tanitas. The information for that company is Shop B, G/F, Nathan Tower, NO 518-520, Nathan Road, Yau Ma Tei, Kowloon, Hong Kong (MTR Exit D). Their number is 3525-0928.
The handheld Omron model was very difficult to find. I was told they might be available at some weight-lifting stores or fitness stores. I was also told they used to be sold at Watsons. Finally, a helpful pharmacist at Watsons pointed me to the Sogo electronics section. Only the Causeway Bay Sogo location has it. They sell the HBF-306, which is the most common model. It was 500 HKD, which is about twice the price you’d pay in the US, but I guess that’s what you get for shopping in Hong Kong for something other than luxury watches, electronics, or jade. Further, as Sogo is a Japanese department store this was a Japanese model. There are English instructions, but the display and buttons are in Japanese. It doesn’t interfere with use as long as you memorize a few symbols.

In addition to the handheld models, Sogo had a couple of high end Omron scales, the kind with the extendable hand holds. These kind have six different impedance sensors, so they can give some even fancier readings like different kinds of body fat. I’m not sure if they are any more accurate for total body fat percentage. I wasn’t in the market for these, so I don’t remember the price. They were probably over 800 HKD.

I move around a lot, so I chose the handheld model because I can take it with me. Then I bought a 100 HKD digital scale from Japan Home so I can measure my weight before using the device.

If you’ve seen these sorts of devices anywhere else, please leave a comment.

The Design of Everyday Smartphones

2011-02-26T00:00:00+08:00

I know I’m not the first one to point this out, but I found that the modern smartphone solves (though probably also creates) many of the problems discussed in Donald Norman’s “The Design of Everyday Things”

Would you like a pocket-size device that reminded you of each appointment and daily event? […] It has to be small. It has to be convenient to use. And it has to relatively powerful, at least by today’s standards. It has to have a full, standard typewriter keyboard and a reasonably large display. It needs good graphics, because that makes a tremendous difference in usability, and a lot of memory–a huge amount, actually. And it should be easy to hook up to the telephone; I need to connect it to my home and laboratory computers. Of course, it should be relatively inexpensive.

The only unmet feature is the “relatively inexpensive” part, but even that is changing.

I know there is still a lot of work to be done, but I’m pretty happy with how many of the problems of task management, password memorization, and number memorization are solved by smartphones.

Migrating to Octopress

2011-02-06T00:00:00+08:00

I’m migrating the site to Octopress. I’m going to make a proper post about why I did it and hopefully start making a lot more posts, but for now I’m putting this here just in case I have any subscribers who are confused that all of my posts aren’t marked as read.

A few things are still broken, and I want to make my own design, but I realized that I had already polished the Octopress blog more than my Wordpress blog, so I decided to launch.

I’ve still got a few bugs, but I’ve actually shut down the MySQL process and switched to a static site.

iPhone Tech Talk Impressions

2008-11-11T00:00:00+08:00

I went to the Hong Kong iPhone tech talk today. I don’t think it violates the NDA to give my impressions of the event, but if it does I suppose the Apple lawyers can tell me.

It was a pretty chill event downtown. I had kind of a bad morning. I couldn’t sleep, and then when I finally did I woke up too early, 5 am. I had to actually get up at 6:30, so I ended up just staying awake. That means I got about 3.5 hours!

Hong Kong winter is really nice in the morning. Very crisp. I was feeling pretty good until I ended up waiting for a bus to Choi Hong for 20 minutes. Five empty buses to Hang Hau for every full bus to Choi Hong. I don’t know what the deal is, some failure in the system…

Anyway, finally got there. I had a lot of trouble staying awake, just because of my state. As for the content, it was all very beginner level stuff. It was like programming for iPhone 101. Granted, it was a two tier system and I only went to the lower tier stuff, but even the higher tier stuff looked pretty simple.

This wasn’t what I was expecting at all. I expected more small groups and breakout sessions with one on one time with engineers. There was none of this besides the 15 minutes between sessions.

Oh well, the “beginner level” stuff was actually exactly what I needed considering I had only toyed around with Xcode for about an hour. I think this may have been deliberate. After all, this is the first year of official iPhone in Hong Kong. Maybe next year, they can operate under the assumption that Hong Kong will have many “seasoned veterans” from the first year and they’ll have more of a developer discussion.

The Apple Asia team seemed really nice. It seemed like it would be a nice place to work.

I love the Apple details. They gave out t-shirts to all attendees, and the cardboard box that holds the t-shirt has more design and usability thought put into it than most OEM laptops.

Simple solution to OS X dictionary pop-up shortcut bug

2008-10-27T00:00:00+08:00

While looking for a Chinese dictionary tool tip application for OS X, I found a Chinese module for the Dictionary app. By combining this with another cool feature to allow mouse-over pop ups from the built in dictionary, I thought I had a good solution.

Except the shortcut didn’t work. Basically, the shortcut “command-ctrl-D” to make the dictionary popup come up, doesn’t work at all. This problem seems to affect some preinstalled Leopard systems.

I ran across a few solutions, like making sure you were using the right key combination, making sure it was enabled, or making sure the dictionary app was in the applications folder. None of these worked for me.

After scrounging the internet forever, this simple solution worked for me.

I know the article doesn’t seem relevant, but it solved the problem, so maybe some random googler will find this helpful.

I should note, the tooltip for Chinese solution is still not ideal, but I haven’t found a free solution that works well, yet.

Update (2011-09-23)

This post is outdated, obviously. The newer version of the dictionary is better formatted so that it doesn’t usually require scrolling. Unfortunately, the new dictionary popup in Lion doesn’t work quite as well as it has in older versions. It often searches for the wrong word, and it has an irritating delay in popping up. I guess you can buy Wenlin if you don’t like it.

Shoes off in the house

2008-10-16T00:00:00+08:00

There is an interesting discussion on Unclutterer about whether or not people wear there shoes inside. Some people are more easy-going, but others take extreme stances on either side, for or against.

I think in this my opinion has been shaped mostly by my upbringing and by my exposure to Japanese culture. My mom kind of made us take off our shoes, but it was never a real serious rule. Grandma’s house, though, that is a place where shoes had to come off. There was a special entryway where you could take off shoes or boots in the winter time. Inside, the linoleum floors and soft carpets were always immaculate. You could just lay on the carpet if all of the chairs were taken by grownups, and the little kids always played on the carpet. This takes a lot of care and maintenance by my grandma, but it made us always feel super-comfortable at her house.

Japanese people have special shoe related customs for every situation. People always take off their shoes when visiting others. They have special shoes you put on when you get to the hot springs resort, but you still have to take these shoes off when you enter your room or eat dinner. There are still other shoes you put on when you enter the bathroom. When you use the scanning electron microscope you actually have to wear a suit with special shoes, though I think they do this in the US sometimes, too.

Come to think of it, my time in Japan has made me more sensitive to cultural differences. By this I mean that I am better able to detect when someone is doing something differently because of their culture and not because they don’t know how to do it the “right” way. I also acknowledge that some times there are two ways of doing something that have about equal merit, but which arbitrarily can be different in different cultures. This sounds really basic, but some people from my culture refuse to acknowledge this.

If it’s a tile floor, I don’t care about leaving shoes on that much. Tile feels dirty to me no matter what. But someday I’ll have a real house with carpet, and in that home I won’t care about other cultures. It’s going to be shoe-less.

Japan’s advantages

2008-10-03T00:00:00+08:00

I can’t say much about Japanese culture. I am by no means an expert. I lived here for ten weeks and there are still many things that happened that I cannot explain. I know that Japanese culture is very insular and that foreigners will somehow always be on the outside, more so than in China. I also know that it is more difficult for Japanese women at work because they rarely get the kinds of advantages like maternity leave that we have in the US.

The things I like about Japan are the little things:

The subway system. It actually lets you go anywhere you want to go. Sure, it is also more complex than any other system, but that gives you something to use that fancy cell phone for.

Breakfast. The Japanese do it better than any other country I have experienced. I’m speaking about “typical” breakfasts, here, something you might eat every morning from a local restaurant. Typical American breakfast items are too heavy with oil and there is too much focus on having a “hearty” breakfast (which actually means heart-clogging). Hong Kong breakfasts seem almost brain dead, like they didn’t know what else to eat so they just threw together random parts from other countries’ breakfasts. A traditional Japanese breakfast is light and healthy. About the only thing it is missing is some fruit, but that can be easily rectified.

Bathing. My morning experience (though I do this at night, too) here is so much better than any other place. Slip on the yukata, take the elevator to the bath in the basement, wash myself sitting down, then slip into the HOT bath for a few moments of peace. The hot bath really clinches it; the heat really gets your blood flowing. I can feel the tension of sleep flow out of my fingers and legs. As soon as I get out, I’m ready to start my day (or go to sleep, whichever time it is).

Toilets. This seems like a strange topic to bring up, but it must be said: Using the toilet is as fundamental a human activity as eating or sleeping, but for all the care put into food preparation and comfortable beds, most of the world is still in the dark ages when it comes to toilets. Even in my home country, the richest (well, at least for now) country in the world, a “luxury” bathroom is one with triple-ply toilet paper. The toilet at my hotel in Japan has a place to set my backpack, privacy curtains that go down to the floor, heated seat, control panel, and bidet. I’ve seen some models that have driers. That the toilet technology here has not become commonplace in other countries either means they don’t care enough or don’t like it. In either case it makes me feel a special kinship with the Japanese.

Ramen. As far as I’m concerned, the only decent soup the west has is Chicken Noodle. Vietnam has pho and China has cross the bridge noodle, but Japan has one of the best: ramen. It comes in many varieties to suit any taste. The noodles perfectly al dente, the broth sublime, and with extras like pork, hard-boiled egg, bamboo shoots, and nori. I know some of you might be saying “but ramen comes from China.” Well, the Japanese perfected it. I’ve never been satisfied with Chinese beef noodle soup, but good ramen is a world class taste.

So those are all the little daily life things that I like about Japan. Of course, there are many other areas in which I can feel some connection to Japan: aquariums, design aesthetic in general, the beautiful natural places, emphasis on technology, and, of course, my favorite anime. But these little things are what make living in Japan more comfortable than other places.

Korean BBQ in Causeway Bay (銅鑼灣的韓國菜)

2008-09-30T00:00:00+08:00

We went looking for Korean barbeque one evening and found this place. It is about a three block walk from the MTR station. The atmosphere is very nice, the meat high quality with a lot of different selections, and the price reasonable. At the end it was $115-130 HKD per person. Service was also quite good, and the set meals were quite enjoyable. We went for dinner, though they had some nice looking lunch specials.

I had a friend who said that it was quite different from the experience in Korea, where the set meal is less common. I can say it was also quite different from the all you can eat (吃到飽) I had in Taiwan that was all self-service and you could choose any meat you wanted. However, it met my expectations of Korean barbeque as an American, providing an almost equivalent experience to the Korean barbeque I had in Houston.

I give it a thumbs up. So if you are in the mood for Korean BBQ near Causeway Bay, I recommend it.

Name: Korea Restaurant Location: 58, Leighton Rd, G/F, Causeway Bay, H.K. Phone: 25779893, 25779876

California Rolls

2008-08-19T00:00:00+08:00

The first thing I made out of the “Cooking Guide” game was California Rolls. I had much more ambitious plans, but it seems that grocery stores in central Minnesota lack the necessary ingredients to make most of the things I wanted to make. After a half hour of searching, we found everything for the california rolls.

We didn’t have my rice cooker, so I had to make rice in a pot. I was a little unsure about doing that, but the rice turned out pretty well. I used fake crab, which was only okay and was apparently not as high quality as the fake crab I usually have.

The whole “meal” consisted of fruit juice, hummus and pita for an appetizer, and then the main course of California rolls. My mom, my brother, and I had four rolls in all It was pretty delicious, and I got better after making each one.

Here is the result:

Itadakimasu!!!

Cooking

2008-08-17T00:00:00+08:00

Since I was a freshman in high school, my mom has rarely cooked dinner. Even if she cooked more often, I’ve been away from home for so long that I almost never have home-cooked meals.

When I’m away by myself, I never cook. The most I make is plain spaghetti, cut up apples, sandwiches, or maybe bagels with melted cheese and carrots. The food is so bland that I usually drink a very sweet lemonade to offset it.

I was always a “picky” eater. Even at my grandma’s house for Thanksgiving or Christmas, where everyone agrees that the cooking is great, I usually ended up eating only the meat and bread. I’ve since expanded, now I can eat the dumplings and mashed potatoes, but the classics like corn, pies, green bean casserole, or fruit salad I will never eat. Most friends would say I’m pretty picky all around.

That is, of course, until I went to Asia. It seems I love lots of different kinds of Asian foods, especially Japanese food. When I came back to America I thought I was cured of my pickiness, but now I’ve come to realize that in general I much prefer Asian foods over European foods.

It seems like every summer, when usually I’m alone, I consider learning to cook things. Most times these attempts have been aborted. I try to make something from a recipe, but because of my inexperience I can’t follow the incomplete instructions. A couple of years ago I learned to make onigiri, but that isn’t really cooking and it isn’t something I did regularly. At last, this summer I helped my roommate cook a basic salmon dish, but I still hadn’t cooked something by myself. What finally pushed me to do it was the discovery of the game “Cooking Guide.” The reason the game is so exciting to me is that it has videos and clear instructions for each step of the preparation. This is what finally made it easy enough for me to try cooking.

I think cooking is important for a lot of reasons. There is a time for a quick sandwich, but sometimes it is really worth it to spend an hour preparing food. Another reason is I can imagine living with someone in the future. I believe sharing and switching off cooking duties is important for a healthy relationship.

I’m starting to develop a nascent “cooking philosophy.” I like cooking simple things. At this point it has more to do with my skills than my preferences, but I prefer “simple” things to eat, also. What I mean is that I like a strong emphasis on slightly changed individual ingredients (like salmon fillets) rather than large mixed dishes (like lasagna). This emphasis on ingredients also demands a huge value placed on fresh ingredients. I’m also interested in Asian dishes, but not just Asian. I like Asian-Western fusion sorts of dishes.

I’m not sure how far I will take this, but in the next few years I will try to learn to cook some more dishes. I’m excited about Hong Kong, because I think I will have much more access to fresh ingredients. I don’t know that I’ll have much time to cook, but I will have to make an effort to try cooking a few times. I will keep this blog updated with new dishes I learn to prepare.

Miso Sesame Salmon

2008-08-16T00:00:00+08:00

After criticizing my mother’s cooking we got into a bit of a fight, resulting in her placing dinner entirely in my hands.

It had to be a salmon dish, that was the plan. The disagreement was over the seasoning: my mom wanted to use some off-the-shelf “salmon seasoning” that I knew I wouldn’t like.

The options for salmon in my cooking game were very limited, and we were missing ingredients for all of them. I had to turn to the internet, searching for different combinations of ingredients that we had. We would usually end up missing some critical ingredient, or if we weren’t the recipe would seem to taste too “rustic” or “earthy” for me.

Finally, I found a recipe that matched my requirements, but I was missing a critical ingredient: Miso paste. Of course, our kitchen didn’t have any. What we did have, however, were a few packets of instant miso soup powder that I’d brought back from Houston Chinatown last Christmas. Low on options, I took the risk of switching the powder for the paste. I used one packet, which usually makes one bowl, because the amount of miso paste (2 TBSP) they used is the same used for one bowl of miso. I would have been missing many more ingredients, but because I had bought ingredients for California rolls a few days earlier I had mirin and rice vinegar.

The cooking went well, if a little frantic. I had never cooked salmon myself, so my mom did help me in determining when it was done.

The entire meal consisted of Miso glazed salmon, steamed rice with nori, and green beans with cheese (my mom made this). For dessert, we had rice krispies bars. It turned out very nice, and the salmon was delicious. I was quite relieved, because I was concerned I would screw up and ruin dinner.

A picture of the completed meal: Okay, it doesn’t look like much when all is said and done, but check out the satisfied customer: and all it cost him was paying for four years of college education…

Here is the text of the recipe, in case the site ever goes down. A big thank you to “The Savory Notebook”!

Oven-Roasted Miso Sesame Salmon 4 serving-sized pieces of salmon fillet (about 6 ounces each) 2 tablespoons light miso 1 1/2 tablespoons mirin 1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar 2 tablespoons rice vinegar or cider vinegar 2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds chopped scallions Preheat the oven to 450. Rinse the salmon and place it skin-side down on an oiled baking sheet. With a sharp knife, make about 4 slashes across each fillet, taking care not to cut all the way through. In a small bowl, combine the miso, mirin, brown sugar and vinegar. Roast the salmon for 5 minutes. Remove it from the oven, spoon the miso-mirin glaze onto the fillets and return to the oven until the fish flakes easily with a fork but is still moist, 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fillets. Serve sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds and scallions.