Archive for the ‘Waffles’ Category
Fuji X100 ~ David Babsky: How to Show Irrational Bias (Part 1)
This review of the X100 blew my mind when I read it the first time, it’s by a guest writer called David Babsky over at stevehuffphoto.com. This review does Steve Huff no favours while it’s on his website, as it’s a terrible piece of writing both in content and form. It’s surprising when David Babsky can’t articulate himself in the manner befitting a teacher. The piece is an insult to Steve Huff’s audience, the quality is just that bad with no journalistic integrity, monkeys must have written and proof read it.
Normally I would just make a comment and move on, but you’ll see later in part two why I didn’t. David’s severe unprofessional negative bias is revealed right away, there’s no attempt at all to be objective or take a constructive critical approach.* It’s clear David just wants to bash a camera he doesn’t want to buy.
I’ve provided a breakdown of the 15 problems in his review with what I think is a fair rebuttal.
IBM gets the hate.
Found this image via minimal mac. Never seen this image of Steve Jobs before!
Mifi (Wireless part 2)
This is the second of two reviews. Both reviews are being written because I recently purchased some cool pieces of electronics. I’ve realised both products will enable me to live a more mobile life style. Part One described the JayBird SB2 Bluetooth headphones.
3 Mifi – Introduction
Who remembers how cool it was to walk around the house for the first time using WiFi with their laptop? It felt so liberating not being anchored to the desk anymore. Remember taking your laptop from one room to another; it became useful to show people something on your laptop rather than escort them to it. I recall having to buy an Airport wireless card to fit my iBook G3 in 2003 in order to upgrade it for wireless use. Now a wireless chip is standard.
Since 2003, the Internet has evolved considerably. It’s matured to a level in our computing experience where the Internet runs in the background, allowing us to work off and online without much fuss. Much more dynamic compared to dialling up with our 56k modems all those years ago. To me, computing offline seems like owning a house with no windows because of that feeling of being closed off from the world when you’re not connected.
I get frustrated if I’m out of the house and there are no WiFi networks available for my MacBook or iPad. Owning an iPhone has helped but owning an iPad has made things worse. The iPad is crying out for a constant Internet connection, unless you’re content with reading iBooks. I was a cheapskate and bought one without 3G.
Mifi with iPhone size comparison
The solution for me was a Mifi (mobile wifi). They started showing up on tech blogs after the MacBook Air originally debuted. It seems like coincidence (mobile Internet rates were becoming reasonable) but many people lamented the lack of a ‘True MacBook Air’ when it was first announced in 2008. Apple hadn’t taken their design philosophy far enough, they should have allowed for a 3G sim inside the ‘the thinnest notebook in the world’.*
We didn’t lament for long because of these new pocketable Internet hotspots. Once activated they can simply sit on your person or in your bag giving 4-5 hours of Internet use. Importantly, they allow for multiple devices to connect to them. On the road, my iPhone and iPad connect to it (as a bonus, the iPhone’s battery lasts longer if using the Mifi) at the same time.
The device 3 offers, is very easy to set up. 3 include a bunch of small instruction cards offering a step by step process for those intimidated. All you end up having to do after the initial setup is turn it on. I think it’s already a geek’s toy that has gone straight into the mainstream.**
I’m amazed now, as I was when I walked around my house with my laptop years ago. But this time I’m anywhere in the UK. Owning a Mifi has helped me live a more mobile lifestyle.
Speed Tests – from my iPhone.
I ran a number of speed tests using the O2 network. None of them could beat the speed test result I got using the Mifi.
3G on O2 with iPhone
Latency is lower with the 3G in the iPhone on O2. The fastest download speed I could gather on O2 was 1.03Mbps. The fastest upload speed can be found in the image above.
3G score using Three's Mifi on iPhone
I ran this test once on the Mifi. I thought the time of day would be a factor but I re-ran the tests on O2′s 3G, after the Mifi test again but it made no difference. For me, Three’s network is faster by far.
Mifi – Advantages
- iPhone 3GS battery lasts longer using Mifi Wifi instead of 3G.
- Since the iPhone sees the device as a Wifi router, downloads ignore the 20 Megabyte rule imposed by Apple.
- 3 has better coverage and faster 3G speeds than O2. (Importantly, full signal inside my house with Three unlike with O2).
- All my devices can connect to the Mifi network at the same time.
- When I move house, I don’t need to wait for a wireline provider. In time I’d like to exclusively use mobile Internet.
- The Internet is a convenience again. I have it all the time with me now.
- Did I mention faster?
- I can use DisplayPad over the MiFi network.
Mifi – Disadvantages
- I have another thing to charge, charging luckily only takes 2 hours.
- An addition device to carry around
- 30-40 delay with turning it on and making a connection.
*Another thing which puzzled me with Apple’s design philosophy is their lack of tethering; allowing the iPhone to serve as a mobile hotspot. I know there are many people who would want this capability.
**3 offer their Mifi for £70 with 3GB included in what they call a starter pack. This 3GB lasts up to 3 months. You can use it in a single day or in small chunks until the 90 day limit. After that you purchase another sim, on a contract or pay as you go. The pay as you go is far more useful because you can cancel at any time. What’s better is 3 will allow you to purchase an iPad sim card. The iPad sim for some reason is cheaper than a normal sim, with more Gigabytes. Why I don’t know, but it’s good to take advantage of it.
New things.
To those that do follow and have a genuine interest in my work, I thank you. Thank you for looking at my images and to find this website interesting. I mainly get a lot of traffic for my Leica lens review but, people do stop and stick around for a little longer to look at the kind of photography I’m up to.
I’m not really busy at the moment so I hope to update this site more often (again). I’ve recently graduated from Swansea Metropolitan University with a First Class Honours Degree in Photojournalism and I’m now waiting to start up my course at Westminster later this year. I’m going to enroll in an MA in Photojournalism.
I’ve also started a new project about car culture, it is early days yet but I have set-up another blog to record my progress. It can be found here at www.cgnc.wordpress.com.
On top of that, some of the finer images can be found here: http://jonathanjk.viewbook.com. This is a new website, not another blog but a website which showcases my best work from my projects with a bit more background information about myself. Thank you if you can take a look. This takes my tally of websites to 4 blogs, a Flickr stream and now a viewbook portfolio.
I’ve also bought the domain for this blog so some of you will have noticed the lack of ‘wordpress’, in the URL.
If anybody is also interested following me on Twitter I can be found as the user ‘CrackedButter‘: If you add me I won’t necessarily add you back though, I find Twitter moves too fast for me, and try to keep who I follow under 10 for the time being. Mostly they are photo-agencies, and my favourite music group. :) I can also be found on Flickr under the same username as my Twitter account.
In other news, I’ve an interview on Tuesday for the new Apple store in Cardiff, due to open sometime soon. This is the final stage and I’m looking forward to the 90 minute interview. I love interviews for the fact they push, and prod at the essence of who a person is, I’m a self discovery kind of guy open to new things, which is the theme of this blog post.
What will i have in 10 years time?
In 1999 I owned a desktop computer which was a Pentium 2, 350 MHz, with 128 megs of RAM, a 30GB hard drive and I think the video card had 8MB’s of inboard memory.
Jump forward to today and I’m typing this blog post on my iPhone 3GS. A PHONE with a 600 Mhz processor, 256 megs of RAM, 32 GB Flash drive and i am unaware of the video capabilities of this device. It has to be more than 8MB’s of memory though.
Some people do care about these things. Just like the guy who recently installed windows 95 on his iPhone, to do some comparison tests with the hardware we have now.
I’m new to mobile blogging but a google search will find it if you’re interested. I’m not sure how to insert links yet with this app! :-)
But. I am left wondering, what will I have infront of me in another 10 years time? What else can we do with technology? Will it even be in my hands, it could be an implant. To me that’s very interesting.
Fuji X100 ~ Seal: How to Show Irrational Bias (Part 2)
with 12 comments
Following on from Part One. What was also of huge interest and blew my mind a second time was what I found in the comments section. Seal, the international pop star and Leica Ambassador weighs in with his opinion and serves to show how subjectivity gets in the way of a good discussion. Seal posts under the alias ’`6‘ by the way.
The discussion is about the Leica X1 vs the X100 and which on a technical level is the better tool. Sadly, the latter part isn’t true, it never goes there because Seal decides to threaten those he is talking against.
While I’ll narrate the comments, in the interests of being fair I’ll repost them in their entirely here so you can make your own mind up as well.
Why am I doing this? This is an appeal for closure, I would love for Seal to respond in a more constructive way, explaining himself. Importantly I also expected a more intelligent response from somebody in Seal’s position.
The comments can be found here at the bottom of the page of David Babsky’s rant.
Read the rest of this entry »
Written by jonathanjk
May 28, 2011 at 15:25
Posted in Waffles
Tagged with AF issues, ambassador, Apple, chad wadsworth, commentators, comments, david babsky, fuji, hasselblad, Leica, seal, steve huff, threatened, x1, x100