I Might Buy a New Satnav, But Not a TomTom Go 740 Live (Updated)

I’ve been thinking about buying a new satnav ever since Dash cut away most of its employees and decided to, shall we say, hibernate. So, I've been mulling over my options and TomTom’s Go 740 Live had looked tempting — after all, it’s a GPRS-connected GPS with live data, just like the Dash Express.

Then I came across this review of the Go 740 Live on Gizmodo; they weren’t exactly raving about it:

The main screen is still a mess, mainly too much unnecessary clutter: Satellite signal strength? Minutes till turn and distance till turn and time at turn, plus time at destination? Traffic alert icons even when there are no traffic alerts? The road graphics still look horrible, and the refresh isn’t always fast enough to tell you where you are. […]

Youch. I enjoy a well-designed interface as much as the next guy (such as with OS X or my TiVo), but it sounds like TomTom is pretty much going in the opposite direction on this. Disappointingly, it appears that many of Gizmodo’s gripes fall across the TomTom line and don’t necessarily afflict this model in particular. I guess I’ll have to keep looking.

Update — May 13: Reading over GPSReview.net, I came across this rebuttal to that Gizmodo review, going over many of the items point-by-point. In fairness, I thought I should include the portion that addresses the bit that I excerpted above:

Minutes until turn? I don’t even see that as an option to turn on in the preferences. The same goes for “time at turn”. (Both of which don’t even exist.) If you don’t like the clutter, use the ‘Status Bar Preferences’ screen to turn things off you don’t use such as time to destination. […]

Well, that certainly paints a different picture. And, while I’d like to be able to say that this gives the TomTom Go 740 Live a clean slate, I’m still wary (irrationally so?) of a GPS unit that has sub-optimal interaction design by default (though, to be sure, an interaction design that is configurable toward better arrangements). In all, I don’t think I’ll cross this one off my list, but it’s decidedly not a slam-dunk for me.

Is This What RSI Feels Like?

Is this what RSI feels like?

As someone who types for a living, I’ve always kept in the back of my mind that I didn’t want to lose the use of those appendages. Back in college, before I really started thinking about this, I noticed some of the early signs of carpal tunnel and, after stopping by the campus health center, they did also confirm that I was seeing those types of symptoms.

After doing a bit of research on the matter, I then bought a Kinesis keyboard (video example) and, since then, I haven’t had any problems; I could type all day and my wrists felt as good at the end of the day as they did at the beginning.

Over about the past week, though, I’ve noticed a bit of an ache at the base of my pinkie finger in my mousing hand, right around that finger’s knuckle area. (I’ve also added a Note to that Flickr image outlining the general area.) At first, I wondered a bit if I had broken it, but after thinking about it, I realized that the ache was coming and going—which I presume wouldn’t happen if it had actually been broken.

I wasn’t quite sure how I’d describe the ache/pain, but I’ll give it a shot. It doesn’t hurt enough that it stops me from sleeping. And, if I’m watching tv or otherwise pleasantly distracted, I can usually ignore it. Every now and then, the pain does occasionally reach to the level where I have to let go of my mouse for a minute and let my hand rest. Or, to put it another way, if you’ve ever punched a wall or otherwise slammed your knuckle into a hard surface (by accident or otherwise), it kinda feels like that sort of pain.

So, what now? Well, if I have any say in the matter, I still plan on typing for the rest of my professional career. And one might think, “Well, let's just add some ergonomics in there.” All of that makes sense, I think, but what I'm finding to me the tough part is separating the ergonomic myths from the legitimate guidelines. Let’s take a wrist rest, for example—I honestly don’t know if that would help or hinder. On top of that, I’m not entirely certain how I would figure that out.

For instance, this page at OSHA.gov suggests:

“Use a wrist rest to maintain straight wrist postures and to minimize contact stress during typing and mousing tasks.”

On the other hand, this page from the “Cornell University Ergonomics Web” says:

Don’t use a Wrist Rest — research has shown that using a wrist rest doubles the pressure inside the carpal tunnel, because the floor of the tunnel is a more flexible ligament that transmits external pressure changes directly into the carpal tunnel (the roof of the tunnel is bone so the pressure doesn’t get transmitted on through the hand). […] ”

Now, I’d usually be more inclined to believe something if it’s posted at a .gov address (especially osha.gov, at that), but this case, it does seem that the Cornell page cites more evidence for its case. Come to think of it, after reading over that Cornell University Ergonomics Web page a bit more, it does appear that they know what they're talking about. I mean, when the footer of your page includes a link for “More information on our Mouse research studies”, that seems like a pretty good sign, no?

One way or another, I’ll need to take care of this. If you have any suggestions—even if they’re suggestions on how to tell the good ergonomics info from the old wives’ tales—I’d be open to them.

Oh, So That’s Why Some Blu-ray Discs Don’t Resume

The HD Advisor is a weekly Q-and-A column at highdefdigest.com in which readers can send in questions to which the staff tries to help answer. Anyhow, in this week’s column, they go over why some Blu-ray discs don't support play-resume:

[…] Just to clarify, the lack of a Resume Play option is tied to BD-Java […]. While all BD-Live discs are authored with BD-Java (so they do go hand-in-hand to a certain extent), it’s also possible for discs without BD-Live to share this problem. Java-enabled discs will usually start with a “Loading” icon before the main menu, and tend to take longer to load than non-Java titles. All of Fox Home Entertainment’s James Bond Blu-rays are programmed with BD-Java, even though none have BD-Live content, for example.

I agree that this is a major shortcoming of BD-Java, and I’m flabbergasted that none of the Blu-ray format developers ever gave this issue serious consideration. […]

So, that’s the scoop, apparently; I’m glad it wasn’t just me. (Up until now, I wasn’t quite sure if maybe I just hadn't configured my Blu-ray player quite right.) That aside, though, Blu-ray still offers a phenomenal picture, so I'm going to continue happily buying Blu-ray discs :).

GreenDimes, erm, Tonic, Is Great For Reducing Junk Mail

I’m not a big fan of junk mail. In part, I don’t ever order from catalogs; even if I quite like an online company, I’m just going to buy their stuff online (even if they send me a catalog). So, it takes some mental processing to sort through junk mail at the end of a day at the office; I’d also rather not fill up landfills with paper, if I can help it.

Enter GreenDimes (well, now the company is calling themselves Tonic Mailstopper):

For $15 [now $20], GreenDimes offers a series of services that you could probably do yourself, but which become much, much easier if you get GreenDimes to help you. Here’s how it works:

First, you register your address and all the names which receive junk mail at your house. Then GreenDimes goes to work, filing letters on your behalf to the thousands of direct marketers to remove you from their mailing lists. That works for credit card mailings and the like, but not for catalogs. Those you have to unsubscribe from individually, so when you get a catalog you no longer want, you visit the GreenDimes website and select the name of the company spamming you. GreenDimes then tells them to cut it out. […]

It does take a couple weeks to start working—due to the printing lead-times for junk mail—though I started noticing small improvements even within a few days. Now, it’s been a couple months since I signed up and I can say that it's worked a treat. Some days, I go to open my mailbox and simply discover that it’s empty. Bliss.

Along these lines, one other service that may be worth mentioning is YellowPagesGoesGreen.Org. On one hand, it’s an advocacy site for curbing yellow-pages distribution (such as by promoting an opt-in model), but what's also handy is that they have an opt-out form in which you can unsubscribe from the yellow pages.

Though they’re not associated with the various yellow-pages companies, they apparently then contact the phone companies in your local area, on your behalf, and get you unsubscribed from your local yellow (and/or white) pages. Since yellow pages don’t arrive with as much regularity as junk mail, I can’t say with absolute certainty that it’s successful, but I signed up back in September (’08) and I haven’t received a yellow-pages since then.

Photos from SXSW 2009

Kevin Lawver and Alex Bischoff

I look forward to SXSW every year—it’s heaps of fun. Sure, there’s the web-stuff learning (which is good), but it’s also nice to be able to see friends again that I’ve made over the years. (For instance, that shot above is with Kevin and I—I can’t even remember how many years ago he and I had met, but it’s always good to chat with him again.)

In all, I think I took around three hundred fifty photos and I believe I’ve posted around twenty five. Last year, I had rented Canon’ 17–55 f/2.8 lens and I was really pleased with how it worked out. I just happen to have bought one a couple months ago, though, so I didn't need to rent one this time around.

My new photography gadget, though, was a Lumiquest Softbox. Unlike a traditional softbox that one might have off-camera on a light stand or the like, Lumiquest’s Softbox is designed to attach right to one’s flash. Granted, there’re about a bajillion flash diffusers/bouncers on the market (and many an online discussion thread on which one is “best”), but the reason I went with this particular product is that I was pretty sure I wouldn't have much in the way of ceilings of which to bounce off.

I’m still getting a feel for flash photography and the nuances of manual exposure toward balancing one’s ambient light with the light from one’s strobe, but I think I’m getting closer. On the other hand, I’m sometimes unsure about metering modes (evaluative/matrix, center-weighted, spot, and so on) and which ones may be most suited for flash photography.

Part of me wants to lean toward spot-metering, but on my Canon 40D, the spot metering is always done off the center focal-point (as opposed to the active focal point). I’m sure that’s messed up my exposure more than once, but I haven't quite decided if maybe I just need to learn how to use spot-metering better or if another metering mode would be more worthwhile.

In all, though, SXSW was awesome. Part of me was a little worried that it could have been even more crowded than last year, but whether through room rejiggeration or maybe scheduling tweaks, the organizers seemed to have largely taken care of some of the crowding issues that had crept in last year. Plus, this year, my brother and I had a chance to get dinner together on the Tuesday night as I was heading out (from Interactive) and he was heading in (for Music). What a great way to round things out.