Mountain Biking Again
It's been a multi-year layoff, but I'm happy to be back at it. Which means that I have been watching way too many videos. Trials riding still blows my mind! Like this video:
I love this movie…
Quick, simple, very cool.
Memoirs of a Scanner (Martinibomb Version) from Damon Stea on Vimeo.
Apparently Ikea Got The Message!
Like clockwork. Mere hours after I posted about my hatred for Ottawa's Ikea, it was publicly announced that Ottawa was getting Canada's largest ikea.
2011 seems like a longways off though.
Operation IKEA Ottawa SUCKS! is under way
The suckage of the Ottawa IKEA store has pushed my patience and my geekdom past its natural breaking point. So I have entered into a small project to detail just how terrible the Ottawa IKEA is.
The problem
It seems that the Ikea in Ottawa is always out of stock of everything I could possibly wish to purchase. I recently sent this email to Ikea:
I am very dismayed by how poor the Ottawa location is, particularly the stock situation.
In the past year I have had to return (in some cases numerous times) to attain the the following items because they were perpetually out of stock. In some cases I have not been able to purchase them at all:
Benjamin Stool
Ribba Frame (black) 70cm x 100cm
Lerberg Wall Shelf (Black)
Lagan Counter Top (96 7/8 ")
Vika Furuskog (78 3/4 ")
Vika Byske
Vika Fintorp
Vika LindvedThe following items I am interested in, but are not even carried at the Ottawa store:
Vika Leif
Alve secretary
Jonas secretary
BÖJA Pendant lamp
RUTBO Pendant lampI must say that my experience with the Ikea in Ottawa has been horribly sub par, and is no where near the service that is provided at other locations I have visited.
The response I received was this:
Hello Tyler,
Thank you for contacting IKEA Canada via email. In regards to your inquiry, please note that our products selection may vary by store. Furthermore, please know that IKEA Ottawa is the smallest of the eleven IKEA stores in Canada. Given the store's restricted storage space, the managers have to be selective about the items the store carries. The store reviews its product selection regularly based on popularity and customer demand.
Please note that your comments will be shared with the appropriate department for review.
If you have additional questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Thank you for choosing IKEA for your home furnishing needs.
Best Regards,
IKEA Canada Customer Service
Basically they admit that Ottawa sucks, but how badly does it really suck? I intend to find out.
The Experiment
I have picked one product that I would like to consider purchasing and I am going to track its availability according to the Ikea website in each of the Canadian stores. I have picked the Vika Fintorp desk leg. It is a $10 item, and it is carried at the Ottawa store, it is just out of stock. Ikea will tell you on the website if a product is not available at a given store. (See: Alve Secretary)
I do not expect to remember to check the stock levels of every store everyday, so I am using a new feature of Google Reader where it will track a page without a feed for you. So I have added a feed for all Canadian stores stock page for the desk leg. I will track it it here: Vika Fintorp Leg Availability. Notice that the page does have a feed if you want to track it. I will also post updates on my Twitter.
Day 1: Results
One of the reasons that I picked this item is because it is available at all Canadian stores and has been out of stock in Ottawa for a while. Knowing my luck it will quickly become available in Ottawa, but I will track it for a while and see.
Boucherville: 52
Burlington: 27
Calgary: 15
Coquitlam: 14
Edmonton: 40
Etobicoke: 12
Montreal: 25
North York: 33
Ottawa: 0
Richmond: 17
Vaughan: 10
SSD For Laptop
I would love to have a SSD for my laptop, but unfortunately that just isn't in the realm of my pocket book. 512gb drives are still in excess of $1000 at the low end! Ugggh.
Here is something that I may try to get me a speed boost for a few hundred dollars:
Monitor Confusion
A little while ago I wrote a bit about my search for a new monitor. I basically conceded that waiting for the Dell u2711 to drop in price to the $700-800 (it is still shockingly high at $1249).
Now I find out from a semi reliable source, that the Dell u2410 will be dropping in price this Wednesday to a very low $419 as part of Dell's March Madness promotion. That is a helluva lot less than the $800 that I am waiting for the 2711 to drop to.
An interesting comparison based on the 16x9 aspect ratio of the 2711 and the 16x10 aspect ratio of the 2410.
The screen height is actually very similar between the two:
27" (16x9) vs 24" (16x10)
So the question is more about the 1920x1200 vs 2560x1440 and whether that is worth waiting for the better aspect ratio to drop to double the price. I think I am going to jump on the u2410 on Wednesday.
I know that it does have some documented issues, but not many of those seem to be reported by North American users. If its an issue I will simply return it.
ToDo: TeuxDeux
TeuxDeux
Alright, so it has a stupid name. TeuxDeux.com should not (and for me will not) be pronounced ToDo. Anyone who has spent anytime around the French language knows that deux (which is the number 2) is not pronounced do. It is pronounced something more along the lines of d-ugh, which I am guessing that it is not what the creator of the site was going for. Anyway, misname aside I will give a brief review of the site.
The site does exactly what you would think it would do, it creates a list and lets you cross stuff off. Having said that, it is missing many things that a fully functional ToDo app needs.
What it does
- Lists item per day or 'someday'
- If an item has not been completed by a given day, it moves it to the next day
- Provides you with a simple and attractive layout that makes it easy to manage items
- Easily lets you drag items from one day to the next
What it lacks
- Scrolling through days of days is tedious adding a '>>' (jump week) to the '>' jump day would be wonderful
- Adding notes to items would be most convenient
- Multiple lists would also be great
- A mobile solution (the FAQ says one is coming)
- Setting a specified time to an item is a must in my book
- As well it needs notifications (email/pop-up)
Verdict
I love the minimalistic feel, and there is supposed to be many more features coming, but for the time being it doesn't fulfill all the required needs of a good ToDo app.
Answering The Age Old Question: Dell u2711 or Apple iMac27
Dell u2711
It is time for me to get a new monitor. My 22" at home is pretty beat up. The amount of backlight bleed is terrible, there are several stuck pixels, including a green one right smack in the middle of the panel that drives me nuts! As well there is real image consistency issues. All this to say I need a new panel.
There are a few that I am considering but I would really like a >=27" IPS panel, with resolution greater > 1920x1200.
When you get into this space, there is really only a two.
There is the new Dell u2711, which has great reviews, but is very pricey for what you get ($1250 regular price).
The other option is actually to buy the new 27" iMac from Apple. For the first time they added a display input to it, so it can be used as both a computer and an external display. I just noticed one on the refurb site (and based on the issues so far, there are going to be lots of refurbs coming) for $1550.
Now I figure that I will see the Dell go on sale (at some point) for about $899, yet that is just a guess. Right now between the two I get an almost identical panel and for $300 extra with the Apple I get a decent computer slapped on the back of one.
Still dropping this kind of cash on a monitor is tough.
One final option is the Dell u2410 which is very similar to the u2711. It is regular $750, but semi frequently goes on sale for $499, which is quite reasonable. Still the 1920x1200 resolution leaves me wanting in comparison to the 2560x1440 of the 27" panels.
Now one of the reasons that I am looking for such a large screen is because I miss having a true dual monitor setup when using my MBP. I could go for 2 24" panels and go with this hacked together version of dual monitors for the MBP: MacBook Pro with Dual Monitors.
At the moment I am leaning towards the iMac, since being able to cluster video rendering would be pretty awesome, but the price tag is kinda tough to swallow.
Now if the u2711 drops to say $799 I am all over it, but I fear that I will probably just purchase the u2410 the next time it falls to $499 and consider a second one at some point. Please feel free to tell me why I am stupid, and what I should do to be smarter about all this.
iPad Version 1.0 = Nope!
I have been digesting the release of the iPad for a few days now, and let me say my first impression is not magical.
After all the hype leading into a the tablet release I figured it would either be a big win or a big loss. Somehow it has come out as neither. Let me go through some initial impressions (keeping in mind I haven't touched the thing, and that seems to be the real factor in Apple product design).
- The name sucks. Someone should be fired for iPad. iTablet, iSlate, iBigiPodTouch! Ok maybe the last one is worse
- It looks like it should be awesome for web surfing, mobile device that has room for real websites
- IT CAN'T USE REAL WEBSITES BECAUSE IT DOESN'T HAVE FLASH SUPPORT!
- It attempts to be a game changer for eBooks, but I can't see myself reading a full book on a backlighted device. I still like the idea of e-ink
- Battery life = 10 hours of video watching! WOW
- Video output = VGA?!?!?! Seriously?
- Support for bluetooth keyboard is awesome, very smart move by Apple
- No multitasking? I actually think that this one will be dealt with with the release of iPhone OS 4.0, but until then... nope.
- Looks awesome for watching video.
- It is seriously crippled for watching web video (cept for Vimeo, and YouTube)... NO FLASH!
- I am impressed that they can sell it for $499
- IPS capacitive display, they can't be making much money on this thing
- The hands on videos make it look very responsive as opposed to my iPhone 3G (no S)
- The UI is a bag of crap. It looks like they are running the iPhone OS on a device it wasn't designed for... Oh wait that is what they are doing.
- The apps they have redesigned for the iPad (contacts, maps, mail) look quite good!
All in all I'm not buying this version of the iPad. Our household has 2 iPhones, and 1 MacBook Pro. To be honest there is a perfect position in the household for a device of this sort. When I am gone with the laptop it would be good if the house had something better than an iPhone for checking email/web. Unfortunately with some of the very blatant limitations the iPad is not a significant enough improvement over the iPhone to justify the purchase.
Perhaps the next version of it that will no doubt deal with a lot of these issues, but not version 1.0. This reminds me of the original iPhone launch. $599 for the 4GB version. 3 months later the 4GB version was gone and the 8GB was selling for $399. Maybe then... If it gets (limited) multitasking and flash and a better UI.
All these things should be solvable with the release of OS 4.0
Update (Purchases)
I had big plans to write some year end blogs about all kinds of stuff. A year of Macdom, music for the year (SaddleCreek kicked ass with 3 really great releases: Hometowns, Feral Harmonic, Mama, I'm Swollen) and movies (Inglourious Basterds, and The Hurt Locker are the top two... Public Enemies gets most disappointing). But I'm too lazy, which also explains why I haven't posted in a while.
So I will just tell you about stuff I bought. I bought a new video camera. It's a Canon HF200. I'm pretty stoked on it so far, and only using the LCD is proving easier than I expected. The HD footage certainly is good, but a little tough to work with (editing wise).
Canon HF200
As well I bought a new (used) car. It's a 2008 Honda Element. I looked at a crap ton of vehicles recently since the lease on the Mazda is ending in April. Most of them were either too expensive or lacked features I required. A quick breakdown.
- Ford Edge - No headroom... Seriously worse than the Mazda
- Ford Escape - Just as bad
- Hyundai Santa Fe - Not Edge bad, but still not good
- Subaru Forester - Not much storage increase compared to the Mazda (this was second place)
- Mazda CX-7 - It's a Mazda. I'm not happy with my Mazda
- BMW X3 - Too pricey
- Subaru Tribeca - Kinda pricey
Anyway the list goes on. Second place was the Forester. Anyway, the Element won because it was cheapish, AWD, manual transmission, TONS OF STORAGE, and lots of head room. It loses on the ugly scale, oh well, but I did manage to find an all black one. It only has 31,000km on it, and after the deal was done I found out that I have 3 more years of warrantee and more 90,000km. Anyway, it is looking like it will fulfill the needs quite well.
Honda Element Storage
Categories
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- Personal Life (50)
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My Reading
- Video: Whistler Trail Riding
- Ladd Mitchell and Miles Parkhill (ex-Park) announce Tiger Tank
- Colour zap
- Lower priced Airborne Bicycles for 2012? Hells Yeah!
- Momi, I want one too!!!
- Reeder for Chrome Transforms Google Reader into a Clean Feed Reading Experience [Chrome Extensions]
- Keep Microwave-Reheated Pizza Crispy with a Sheet of Parchment Paper [Food Hacks]
- DC passes Marvel in comic sales
- 29 global banks deemed 'too big to fail'
- Photo
My Listening
Comments
- Steve on My iPad Killer App – Video Player
- Don W on FUCK YOU KIJIJI!
- The Langer Group on The Shoetiful Disaster
- matt on The Student Loan Interest Swindle: CRA Style
- Bree on Answering The Age Old Question: Dell u2711 or Apple iMac27
- fady on Where Did My Google Chrome Bookmarks Go?
- Leo Derm on FUCK YOU KIJIJI!
- Leo Derm on FUCK YOU KIJIJI!
- Vancouver Wedding Photographer on FUCK YOU KIJIJI!
- Chris on Peaksaver: Big Brother Genius or Big Brother Lazyness?