Flipboard and Zite Alternatives for the Desktop?

I mentioned in an earlier post some of the reasons why I was thinking my next tablet might be an iPad 3 rather than an Android Tablet even though I've done more Android development than iOS. However, as I look at the things I do with a tablet, and consider things I'd like to do, I'm finding myself drifting toward a Windows Slate like the Gigabyte S1080 or even a multimedia laptop with an all day battery such as the Toshiba Satellite L755 (with the 12 cell battery add-on). For many things I do (Word Processing and Photo Editing) this would be an improvement. For some things (viewing 500px or reading Reddit) it will probably be a wash. But two things I REALLY like on my iPad are Flipboard and Zite. I know they are based on RSS readers under the hood, but I can't seem to find anything browser or even program based that does the same sort of presentation. Are there such creatures out there? If not, is anyone working on them? I would presume that when Windows 8 comes out this fall there is going to be a huge demand for such.

Now I remember why I left the iPad the first time

Has been an "interesting" past couple of days as I have had several reminders of why I moved away from the iPad in the first place. I am having an issue where the iPad will no longer talk properly to the one machine I keep iTunes on. Wiping the pad and wiping iTunes and reinstalling has not fixed the issue, and so syncing seems to be terminally broken.

Which wouldn't be so bad, but I am trying to work on an art project where I need to be able to move graphics between programs, as well as back and forth to the PC. I am finding ways to do all this, but I am having to play all sorts of games with filenames and such that I just find beyond ridiculous.

Of course one answer would be to jailbreak, but then I have to wonder if I'm not better off switching back to an Android Tablet where none of this is a concern. It's just frustrating that even though Apple is put forward as the company that "gets" it's audience, that it can still miss in such a big fashion.

In the meantime, there are a few weeks before I have to put money behind my decision, and maybe something will come along that will make me feel more sold that there is a "right" answer after all. I did briefly consider even going back to a laptop, but for several reasons I really (!) need both the long battery life and the ability to easily move back and forth from landscape to portrait that a tablet still has over most laptops out there.

Is that a Telescope in your Pocket?

One of the things I end up doing at the start of every new year is to spend some time cleaning up my Photo Directories, and preparing a new directory for the new years' shots. Lately I have also worked to track what cameras I have used each year. This has been a little more intense this year as my T2i has had a non-working LCD screen since a photo shoot at a drought affected state park in late summer. I say non-working because the glass is perfectly fine and the backlight turns on. Just not image on the screen. My photos still turn out fine, but I don't have as much flexibility as I should have.

In any case, this has been important as I have a pretty strict budget for next year, and I don't see myself buying a lot of camera equipment if I still want to get a tablet. So I have been looking at some of my older photos to see what I can and can't live with, and to see what my "best" move for 2012 might be.

All of this is a somewhat long prelude to the post title. I have sent the T2i in for repairs as I'm fairly certain that will be $200 or less, and based on the reviews I've read, the IQ for the next generation T3i is actually a little worse. So the question then was whether I should get a walking around lens for the T2i (18-270mm Tamron most likely - but at a cost of $800), or buy one of the recent Super Zoom cameras like the Panasonic FZ series used to feature.

In doing so, I was surprised to see just how good the new $400 Canon SX40HS photos are with an amazing 35x zoom. Even at full zoom I wouldn't have a hard time comparing them to the Panasonic cameras I used to carry. But it gets better. You can get a Canon filter adapter and add a 2X Telephoto adapter on the end. Which translates to a 70x full zoom. In other words, with the default zoom on the SX40HS you can get decent images of a full moon or partial moon (some examples at http://forums.dpreview.com/galleries/40471416/photos/1652505/IMG_0557z%20t-a and http://forums.dpreview.com/galleries/4028029546/photos/1597047/IMG_0256_m_c). With the 2x you should be able to start imaging lunar features. Some folks have also reported being able to get pictures of the 4 large moons of Jupiter (trick is to get them when they aren't too close to the planet and it blows out the moons from the exposure difference). Hence you really are carrying the equivalent of a Telescope with you. Add in the fact that you can take super macro shots... and it was easy enough to convince myself that I am better carrying two cameras than one in this case both for cost AND reach.

Just wanted to share in case any of y'all are trying to make a similar decision :-)

Why Adobe Seems to be Losing It

So I finally got around to updating to the combined Photoshop Elements 10 and Premiere Elements 10 package earlier this week. From past experience I knew this would go better by uninstalling the old version first, and installing new after. Of course that took a good bit of time, and so today was the first chance I had to actually start working with the products. And I can't say I have been impressed.

Opened PS Elements, and it wanted me to give it my Adobe ID. OK did that, it confirmed that I had one and had an online account, linked my online account, and continued to spin while getting that info. Decided if that took so long I had better do the same to Premiere, so closed PS Elements first, then opened Premiere Elements, and sure enough I had to login again (hello... if you have asked me once can't you pass that along), and go through the same thing.

Fine. So now I go back to PS Elements, and this time it asks me to register. Why didn't it ask me to register last time. Still I click on OK... and it asks me to login again. What the...

Finally get into the product, am pleased to see that it does work with the T2i RAW files (one of the major reasons I upgraded), and go to resize the image. The image resize shows the pixels, and then has the box to change the size in inches. I go to change it from inches, and it gives me several options - but none of them are pixels! So I click on "Learn more about image size" to see how to fix that. Which launches the help screen that now tries to install Air, except Air can't install because Help is running...

Seriously. Did anyone at Adobe actually USE THIS PRODUCT before shipping? I understand the desire to make folks want to purchase the full product, but having something this awkward that still manages to run slow on an i7 with 12 gigs of ram makes me think that someone wrote the program for the Mac, ran the code through a translator, and then compiled and shipped without actually testing first. Because I just refuse to believe anyone could have tested this and said "Yes, this is a user experience I would be proud to tell my friends about".

So I close the request to install Air, and it churns and churns for about two minutes before taking me to a web page that tells me what I am seeing, but nothing about any actual setup options. And it covers half the description with a prompt asking me if I want to look at the help from earlier versions of the product, which makes reading the help for this version that much harder.

OK... now that I have that off my chest, I will say that the product does let me do a lot of useful things that will help improve my workflow so that I don't have to use the Canon Software to turn the RAW into a TIFF, and then edit that with another tool to create a final PNG. But it still feels slow compared to tools such as Paint.Net, and I really have to wonder why they make everything so hard to find.

In any case, it may just be me, but I remember back when I felt bad about using the free products because the Adobe software versions were so much easier to use that I felt like I was being penny wise and pound foolish. But if this is their future direction, then I think they shouldn't be surprised to see more than just their Flash market dry up...

Building a Vanilla Android AOSP ICS Rom on Windows 7 64-bit

Please note that this is a guide to how to setup an environment to create your own ROM, and to build a test AOSP ICS Rom that will work on an emulator. While it is possible to do all this in 32-bit Win 7, you will find it much (!) easier in 64-bit Win 7. The intention is to allow all the folks who have said they'd like to work on a ROM to get their feet wet. If you complete all the steps in this guide you will have a Vanilla ICS Rom that works in the Android Emulator. You would still need to modify the kernel for the CPU your particular device uses and add the special radio and other drivers before porting to your device.

Of course you can skip step 4 if you are willing to either dual-boot Ubuntu, or go into Ubuntu full time. However I figure a lot of folks on here are still on Windows for one reason or another.

1) Make sure that the ROM for your Windows 7 computer is set to allow Virtualization. If you have a Core i7 this will be the default. Otherwise you will need to make sure to set it manually through the Setup that should come up before BOOT.

2) Download VirtualBox 4.1.8
DL Link here for VB:
http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.1.8/VirtualBox-4.1.8-75467-Win.exe

DL Link here for VB Extensions (necessary for USB, shared folders, etc):
http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.1.8/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.1.8-75467.vbox-extpack

3) Download Ubuntu 11.04 64-bit
DL Link here:
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download
Make sure (!) to select the 64-bit version before clicking download

4) Install VirtualBox and Ubuntu:
Install and Setup Guide:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/130922-linux-install-windows-7-virtual-machine-using-virtualbox.html
(Note that some of the images from this guide are from an earlier version of Ubuntu)

I personally recommend that as long as you have at least a Quad Core that you give your VB machine Two Cores and Two Gigs of RAM. For the HD size of your Virtual HD remember that the Android Source Code is almost 16 Gigs. For speed and other purposes I suggest creating a fixed size 80 Gig (or larger) Virtual HD. While this can be on an external drive, if you have room on an internal drive that will also improve performance.

5) Install the Toolchain (Android Build Environment):
http://mjanja.co.ke/2011/11/building-android-4-0-on-ubuntu-11-10/

The first three steps will take between 1-2 hours. Step 4 will take an hour or so as well. Step 5 takes multiple hours due to the size of the Android repo source library. Plan accordingly :-)

Hope this helps!