THEmitchpoe

The One The Only

Time For Another Podcast?

(download)

The people who know me know that I am an audio guy. I have lots of equipment that I never get to use and it's getting annoying. I've always been drawn to the idea of doing a podcast. and did for a while, but it's not an easy thing to keep up. Recently I've been kicking around the idea of doing something a little more low key. The audio I have attached to this will serve as a test to see if I can send out audio without having a dedicated host and all that. Feedback is always welcome, as well as ideas for what I should call this thing. 

My iPad's WiFi Signal Record

When I first opened my iPad, I was having a lot of trouble with my wifi connection. It would last about 10 or 20 minutes and then completely drop without any messages alerting me. I would have to manually restart my wifi radio to get a signal and use the internet fir another 10-20 minutes. After reading the discussions on Apple's website, I decided to try turning off the "Ask to Join Networks" setting in the wireless menu. That seems to have helped a bit. This is my complete accounting of the iPad's WiFi signal in my house on day two.


In my bedroom, which has one other bedroom between it and the router, I get full signal but the wifi icon blinks. It will completely disappear and reappear within a fraction of a second. The signal seems to remain strong and consistent though. If I am dropping connection, it is picking it back up very quickly.

In my office, which has a router in it, I also have a full signal with occasional blinking. After loading multiple websites in succession the signal seemed to stay consistent. In the living room, which also has a router in it behind the television, fluctuates between a full signal and one bar. On day one, this is where I was having most of my issues. Today it seems to be running fine even with the fluctuating wifi icon. I do experience some slow downs ,but I am unable to replicate the problems I was having on day one.

The den, a room we don't use very often, is about one room over from the living room with only one thin wall separating me and my router. I experience the same fluctuating signal as before but no drop outs as of yet. After about 30 minutes of use the wifi still appears to be connected. In the basement, a room we spend a fair amount of time in, the signal still appears to be ok. The signal goes from low to full, but the connection seems ok. I did lose my connection once, receiving a "Connecting" message from the iPad. It did not auto connect, however, and I had to go to the wireless settings and reconnect to wifi manually. Other than that one instance I have not had much trouble today. I watched about 15 minutes of an episode of 20/20 in the basement and then moved upstairs while it was playing. The stream never even stuttered. This is also surprising to me because normally my Internet can't handle streaming video This seem to be working better today, so maybe changing the settings for joining networks fixed my issues. I would think that the rest of my issues may be solved in a firmware update because I seem to be able to stay connected now. I am still undecided on whether I should keep this iPad and see what Apple does or go ahead and ask for a replacement just to be safe. P.S. This entire post was written on my iPad. The keyboard is fine to use.

UPDATE: As I was putting the finishing touches on this post, my connection completely dropped again without any warning and did not auto connect. I had to go in and select the network myself. Admittedly, this is not a terrible flaw if it is infrequent. If it becomes a constant issue, though, it will be very annoying very quickly. This also seems like a software fix. Apple could probably write a patch to make the iPad better at reconnecting itself or holding a connection better. So, as of now, I am still undecided. What would you do? Let me know.

Countdown to iPad: Screw Small Towns


I just got my email from Apple saying I won't get my iPad until Monday because Saturday delivery is not available where I live. According to them, I will get my magical Apple tablet on Monday.

This is a little frustrating for me. Now that I won't have mine until 2 days after everyone else the countdown doesn't make sense for me. I could fake it and pretend, but that's not in the spirit of full disclosure. Instead, I'm shooting for the spirit of giving up.

This isn't because I ran out of ideas. I had a few lined up including a look book to help my tattoo artist get an idea of what I want, a recipe guide for mixing drinks, better blogging platform, and a few other things I was knocking around.

The only good thing about this delay is that I will be home when it comes and not at work. I doubt I'll do a review because there will be hundreds of them before I ever get my hands on the device. I may tweets some thoughts though.

Hell, it may be a few months before I even write again.

Mitch

Countdown to iPad: Part 2 - Djembe Tuning


Today's iPad use case snuck up on me. Yesterday I received the djembe drum I ordered. For those who don't know, a djembe drum is a wooden African drum with an animal skin head. Mine is covered up and down in nylon ropes which are used for tuning.

After about 5 minutes of playing around on it I noticed it didn't sound right. I don't know about rope tuning so I had to hit the Internet and try and figure it out. I started looking on YouTube and found a few videos showing how to tune this thing. So I ended up with my drum in the floor in front of my desk and looking back and forth trying to figure it out.

Here is where the iPad comes in. It would be awesome to have my iPad in the floor next to the drum so I don't have to look back and forth and I don't have to be chained to a desk. I couldn't use the iPhone because I wouldn't be able to see the knot work on the smaller screen, or at least not as well.

This could carry over to anything you would need an instructional video for: putting things together, learning to play instruments, just about anything. You could even use it as text and pic instructions.

And in case you're counting, there are only five days left until we get our iPads.

Mitch

Test Post #2 and More iPad App Stuff

I found this post written on one of my iPhone apps. I remember writing it and running out of time to finish it. This was written a while back when the iPad was first announced. Since I worked so hard on it I'm going to use it as a test post for my Posterous pipeline even though it's a little late.

Everyone has been talking about Apple's latest announcement so I won't insult your intelligence by rehashing everything you probably already know. Instead, I'd like to share with you a few of the apps that I think will be made even better by the iPad.

These are in no particular order. I just listed them as I saw them. I guess that means they are in alphabetical order.

Air Mouse (Wireless keyboard and mouse app for controlling your Mac) -I have a Mac Mini under my TV so I can stream all of my content from the main computer in my office to the big TV in the living room. When I first set everything up, I spent a lot of money on a small wireless keyboard with a mouse pad so I could control the mini from the couch. Not long after that, The Air Mouse app is released for $5 rendering my +$200 keyboard useless. I love using this app. It makes navigating the mini media center a breeze. Using its on screen keyboard on a large screen, plus having a 9” track pad, is going to make the experience even better.

Band (Virtual Music App) – This pick isn't just for this app alone, but for the entire genre. Music creation apps have been a big hit on the iPhone. Drums, pianos, guitars, and even leaf trombones have been represented. The only problem is that the iPhone's small screen offers limited playability for the variety of instruments. The size of the iPad will make playing piano and drums so easy that you could probably do some really creative things on the device. I'm not sure how well a guitar app will translate though.

Byline (RSS app that syncs with Google Reader.) - While it seems that a lot of people aren't riding the RSS train anymore (or at least no one is talking about it) I still find the service very useful. I load up my news at least twice a day so that I can read it whenever I want. Usually that is right when I wake up and again before I go to bed. This is another experience made better by my iPhone because I'm not chained to a computer to read the articles I want. And while I'm not really bothered by having them on a small screen, I think the iPad version will make navigating these articles easier and faster. If so, I will probably become more dependant on RSS than I am now.

Civilization Revolution (Game) – I will assume you know about the Civilization PC game series and that you may have heard of the console port Civilization Revolution than showed up on the Xbox360, PS3, and the mobile version on handheld systems. If you do know these facts, then you are probably aware that and iPhone version was released not too long ago. I really liked this game and wasted countless hours plundering defenseless empires with tanks and bombers while they foolishly tried to overthrow my cities with horsedrawn cannons. Yes, I played it on easy settings because I had more fun that way. When I bought the iPhone version I was a little disappointed to find that it was too small for me to enjoy playing it, though I loved the DS version. I'm hoping that the app scales well to the iPad (or gets remade) so I can take advantage of the large area for better troop management.

ComicBookLover (More specifically, comic books in general) – In the past couple of years, comic books have slowly begun to take over my life. That might be a little dramatic, but I have spent a lot of money on my new hobby. The downside to this is that I can't always bring what I'm reading with me and there are a few series I need to catch up on without scouring the globe for back issues. Enter the digital comic. There are a lot of computer applications for reading digital comics (my favorite being ComicBookLover) and a fair amount of apps for the iPhone. The only problem is that neither format is suited for comfortable reading and getting DRM free comics legally is all but impossible at this point. A lot of comics can be read in flash apps online, but that experience is even worse than the first two. With the iPad, reading digital comics will finally be a viable option for you to choose. CBLover and other developers are making iPad specific apps and a lot of publishers are supporting digital comics on the app store already. Of course this is because the comics are completely locked down with no way to export your books, but at least you can buy the issues you want without paying a monthly subscription for a back catalog of comics you are only partially interested in.

Cooliris (News Aggregate) – Cooliris is a program I heard about that I never really got into, but I though could be dead useful if it was implemented properly. It lets you input things that interest you and make a list of your favorite sites. Then it gives you this wall of content that you can flip through and select the stories, videos, and other media you want to view. I first tried it in a browser, which was nice, but a little slow. That may have been because it was early, though, because the iPhone version is a lot snappier. Again, screen size plays a factor here. I think this could be an app I use regularly once I get the iPad version. Check it out for yourself at http://www.cooliris.com/.

FourTrack (Music Mixer) – I already talked about the iPad being used to create real music, and this is just another piece of the puzzle. This app is for musicians to record 4 tracks seperatley (guitar, drums, vocals, anything) and the mix them together to make a song. This is a really useful app that is a little hard to use correctly on the iPhone. This app, or others like it, could be a must have for musicians with an iPad.

Kindle (Book reader app) – Many people have said that the iPad is a direct competitor to the Kindle and that it blows Amazon's book reader out of the water. That remains to be seen by the general public, but even if it does I still have a small library of Kindle books that I'm not going to abandon. It's nice to know that even if the iPad makes me never want to use my Kindle again (which I doubt will happen) I can still read all the books I got half way through. 

The Secret Of Monkey Island (Point and Click Adventure) - I never got to play this game. Everyone recommended it when it came out, but for some reason I never got around to buying it. Playing this on the PC will probably always be the better choice, but in a race between iPhone and iPad I think we can all agree that it will be more fun and easier to play on the latter. I imagine that try to click my way around on the small iPhone screen would get aggravating. 

Worms (Game) - This is one of my favorite games from when I was younger and I have purchased almost every iteration since the first PC version that I owned. I didn't hesitate to buy it when it was released as an iPhone app, but I didn't have enough screen to feel comfortable. Once I'm able to zoom out and still be able to aim this game will probably get a lot more play.

Countdown to iPad: Part 1, Six Days Left

It didn't take me long to decide what my first "Wish I had an iPad right now" moment was going to be. When I walked into work today, I noticed we had a good number of clients on the board. With each client comes two or three appointments I have to remember. This quickly adds up and becomes too much to remember.

I've used a combination of iCal and Google Calendar to keep the appointments on my iPhone and close at hand. The only problem is I feel a little limited in my record keeping. I can put in all the info I need, but seeing it laid out leaves a lot to be desired.

The version of iCal on the iPad looks really good and may help me in keeping track of my work better than I can now. In addition to that, the leaked Bento app may be exactly what I need.

What I would like is a sort of day planner that will let me look at my schedules by day, week, and month, but might also let me look at it by client. Something that would let me select a persons name, then see all the appointments associated with that person would be a great help.

I'll have to look around a bit once I have the device in my hand, but I'm sure it won't take long to get the kind of app I need.

Countdown to iPad Day: Part 0

It's almost here. In only six days, a UPS truck will be struggling up my steep driveway just to deliver my magical Apple tablet. After more than a year of waiting to see what Apple was up to and two months since the official announcement, six more days doesn't seem so bad.

To celebrate, I am going to post a use for the iPad every day until it's release. These uses will be specific for me. I'm not trying to talk everyone into buying an iPad because I know not everybody wants or needs one. For about a year now, I have come accross situations where I thought a tablet would be a great device to have, and these moments have continued to crop up since the iPad was first shown to the public. For the next week, I will post these situations when they come to me. These are my reasons for buying the newest Apple device.

I'm not sure what these reasons will be until I write them. Who knows where this will go? It may turn out that I have very few uses for this thing. Let's just enjoy the ride.