512 Pixels

It’s the holidays, meaning it is time to get something for those nerds in your life. I’m here to help you not screw it up.

Tech

• $79 Kindle — Amazon’s new e-reader is great. It’s cheap, small and has incredible battery life. I’ve read more than I ever have since purchasing mine several weeks ago.
• Apple TV — For $99, you get iTunes, AirPlay and more. Apple’s set-top box is an amazing value, and a must-have for any TV setup.
• Bose SoundDock Series II — It’s a Bose iPhone dock. Everyone needs good tunes that sounds good.
• The Glif — iPhone 4/4S + tripod. What a slick combination.
• Twelve South Compass iPad Stand — Twelve South’s iPad stand is well-built, handsome and sturdy. When not in use, it folds down in to a small, well-designed pouch.

Writing

• Field Notes — These little notebooks are my favorite in the world. They are pocketable, sturdy and affordable. They ship in multiple colors and setups, so there’s an option for just about any writer.
• Blue Pilot G2 07 — Don’t listen to the others — this is the best pen on the market.
• The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law 2011 — This book isn’t just for those of us with journalism majors. If your favorite nerd writes on the web, they need this book on their desk.

Fashion

• Casio Men’s DBC30–1 Databank Digital Watch — This is my new watch, and although I’ve had it just a week, I already feel smarter.
• Saucony Originals Men’s Jazz Low Pro Sneaker — I’ve worn these sneakers since 2002. I’m currently wearing a pair of green and gray ones, but it’s about time to replace them. These are comfortable, cheap and colorful. Nerds like consistency, and these shoes offer it.
• Ray-Ban RB2140 Original Wayfarer Sunglasses — Like a boss.
• Batman Classic Distressed Logo Adult Ringer T-Shirt — If your nerd is a Superman guy, I can’t help you.

Entertainment

• Mad Men: Seasons 1–4 on DVD — Uh, it’s freaking Mad Men. Why are you even questioning this?
• Sigh No More - Deluxe Edition by Mumford and Sons — The deluxe edition of Sigh No More included a full-length recording of Mumford and Sons live. These additional tracks are well mixed, unlike some live albums. This is a must-have for those long coding stretches.
• Sennheiser HD–280 PRO Headphones — The best way to listen to the above album without bugging those around you.
• The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe — The first NASA astronauts and the numerous test pilots before them pushed the envelope over and over. These guys, who were real badasses. This book chronicles their journeys into space.

Vices

• Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey Whiskey — While it is hard to beat straight Jack after a bad day at the office, the honey version takes the bite off, replacing it with a smooth, sweet flavor.
• Zippo Black Ice Pocket Lighter — Smoking may not be cool anymore, but this lighter sure is.
• LEGO Star Wars Ultimate Collector’s Millennium Falcon — Star Wars. LEGOs. Hours of fun.
• PowerMac Cube G4 — This is the best-looking Mac in my collection, and a great talking point while showing off a man-cave.

Instacast HD is now on the App Store. If you own an iPad and care about quality podcasts, you need this app. Cody Fink agrees.

It includes all the features found on the iPhone version, re-imagined for the iPad’s form factor. The few people I showed it off to during the beta testing phase were all seriously impressed at the UI. The guys and gals at Vemedio really know how to build a good-looking app.

With Instacast’s iCloud sync, it’s easy to keep subscriptions matched between the two devices. However, I’m just using HD for video podcasts. That’s not to say I don’t love the iPad version for audio, too — I just find my iPhone a lot easier to deal with in the car, which is where I listen to podcasts the most.

I’ll be passing out a handful of promo codes over on Twitter today, by the way. Even if you don’t get one, the $4.99 for this app is well worth it.

In this episode, Myke and I wrap our talk on Nessie.

I had to finish my Kindle Fire review early. It really is that bad.

Never has a van from the early 1980s been so cool.

This will change your life.

Monday, Nov. 21

8:50 PM — My buddy just dropped off his Kindle Fire. Major props to him for letting me borrow it. Time for some whiskey? I THINK SO!

9:01 PM — The box is very similar to what my $79 Kindle came in — simple, clean. Setup was pretty simple. I powered the device on, entered my WiFi password, and logged into my Amazon account.

9:02 PM — The power button is on the bottom of the tablet (while it’s held in portrait mode). I’ve hit it about a six times already, putting the device to sleep while using it.

9:45 PM — Spent about half an hour playing around on the Fire, sitting on the couch. I like how the Books, Music, etc hubs show “On Device” and “In the Cloud.” It’s a clever way of showing what’s been purchased, but not downloaded. Speaking of downloads, I’ve added several free apps to the device, and every time Amazon emails me about it.

9:50 PM — Heading to bed. Just checked my RSS feeds via Google’s mobile Reader webpage. Feels pretty 2007-ish.

Tuesday, Nov. 22

9:30 AM — At the office after sitting in traffic forever. The Kindle Fire didn’t seem to mind, as it was nestled in my backpack next to my iPad 2, which will be off all day.

9:40 AM — Here’s a stack of the gear currently on my desk, including my 13" MacBook Pro, iPad 2, the Fire, my $79 Kindle and my iPhone 4:

The Fire is the same width as my e-ink Kindle and is just a little bit taller.

9:55 AM — I really dislike the 7" screen size. In portrait, it feels awkward, and in landscape, there’s not enough screen real estate to really see anything — especially if the keyboard is on the screen.

10:26 AM — The more I play with the Android apps that run on this thing, the more I think about the Classic Environment. It feels like these apps are just taped to the back of the Fire’s UI, just because someone realized this thing had to have some apps at the last moment.

10:31 AM — I meant to mention this last night, but I got my iCloud email working over IMAP in the built-in email client with no issues. However, I’m without my contacts and calendars. Oh well.

Screw This — I’m Done

I can’t take it anymore. I’m already tired of this device.

Look, here’s the thing: the Kindle Fire sucks unless you are earlobe-deep in Amazon’s ecosystem. Even then, the hardware and software aren’t stellar. It’s cheaply made with a small screen and a heavy chassis. The software is laggy and crashes at times. The weird UI means apps are never where you left them.

It’s just like the e-ink Kindles — a front-end to Amazon’s stores. (And unlike the e-ink versions, reading on this thing sucks, since it is a backlit LCD.) This thing isn’t an iPad killer. Hell, it isn’t even a Generic Android Tablet killer.

Now, I like my e-ink Kindle. But it isn’t trying to be anything but an e-reader. The Fire has a serious identity crisis, and as such, it isn’t good at anything, really.

Nilay Patel:

HP just reported its Q4 2011 financial results, and although the company managed an overall profit, the real news is in the webOS numbers: HP spent a big chunk of $3.3 billion this year killing the webOS group and absorbing Palm’s falling value. Considering the $1.2 billion HP spent on Palm in the first place, and it’s clear that HP’s blown through at least a couple billion in its failed webOS experiment — an experiment that’s still awaiting a final resolution from new CEO Meg Whitman, who’s promised employees a decision on their fates sometime within the next few weeks.

Damn.

Wired has a nice look behind-the-scenes of one of my favorite shows on TV.

…it’s like my heart is getting hard.

This Is My Confession

I owned three netbooks back in the day. The first was the original netbook, the Eee PC 701 4G. While the “4G” had nothing to do with its network connection, the machine wasn’t half bad.

It was all the way bad.

I later moved on to the HP Mini 1000 and then the Dell Mini 9. The HP had a fairly decent keyboard, and the Dell Mini 9 ran OS X 10.5 Leopard like a champ.

Fundamentally, however, all three of these notebooks had the same problems — small screens, crappy keyboards and trackpad and Windows XP. But more on all of this in a bit.

The Tablet Killed the Netbook Star

As netbooks trudged on from the 701’s 2007 launch, they slowly became more fragmented. Screen sizes slowly grew, the Intel Atom processor showed up in most models, and some even eventually got Windows Vista.

What a winner.

When Apple announced the iPad in January 2010, Steve Jobs discussed the netbook:

Jobs was right. While the netbook was already on decline by early 2010 — at least in mindshare. The iPad, however, seems to have just about killed them off.

This All Seems Familiar

Starting this quarter, Intel has been pushing “ultrabooks” on to the market. These machines are all built around a set of specifications from the chip maker. They all have SSDs, CULV Intel processors and 11.6 or 13.3-inch displays.

Sounds familiar? It should — mainly because the MacBook Air wasn’t around in 2007 for PC companies to copy.

Now, It Really Seems Familiar

Here’s Joanna Stern at The Verge, reviewing the Acer Aspire S3:

“Ugh, this keyboard!” That may not have been the very first sentence I typed on the chiclet panel, but it was surely amongst the second or third. As I mentioned before, the plastic deck feels shockingly cheap, and the matte keys sprouting out of it are no different; they are flimsy, mushy, and grossly flat. The spacing on the keyboard is perfectly adequate, but why Acer had to make the arrow keys smaller than a peanut (literally) is beyond me.

[…]

It probably won’t come as a shock that the 3.5 x 2.5-inch touchpad similarly suffers from quality issues. It too feels overly plasticy and chintzy like a Fisher Price toy. But I am happy to report the responsiveness of the multitouch surface is better than I expected — I didn’t encounter any jumping cursors and two-finger scrolling was relatively smooth for a Windows laptop.

The S3 isn’t the most expensive or the nicest ultrabook on the market. However, it was one of the first, and one of the cheapest. To be honest, its low price appeals to the people who walk into a Best Buy to buy a computer without any research.

The problems Stern outlines in her review — and other ultrabook reviews — aren’t new to the tiny, Windows-based notebook world.

Is It All About Power?

While ultrabooks may look and feel like netbooks, the processors tucked inside have improved over their ancestors. Coupled with SSDs, these new machines are even faster. However, PC builders can’t seem to get the rest of the package right.

Shocking, right?