Shack Attack

Thanks for the iPad, Teach for America.

People donated refurbished iPads to Apple, and they gave them out to TFA Corps Members. From what I can tell, they're 1st-gen 64GB Wi-Fi models.

First impressions: the reason Apple is dominating the portable electronics sector is because their first generation offering runs circles around everybody else's new releases. I got a fire sale TouchPad when HP ditched WebOS, and the iPad is so much more intuitive, responsive, well-designed, and professional-feeling.

That said, I'm not sure what to do with mine. When I'm out and about, I use my phone. When I'm at a desk, I use a computer. I can't really lesson-plan on it, because I run most classes on PowerPoint. It's too heavy to hold with one hand and read, and I don't fly enough to appreciate the movie-watching capabilities and 10-hour battery. I've played around with it as a smartboard input device, but it's a little too laggy over wifi to sketch smoothly, and I prefer a simple wireless clicker for slides and a document camera for live input.

I'll give it a few weeks and try to find a good classroom application for this pretty slab of glass and metal, but I see it sitting on my desk more than such a magical device deserves.

Update:

Yeah, my hunch was right. There's no place for the iPad in my classroom, and at home it just drives domestic abuse (my girlfriend hits me for browsing reddit while we watch TV). Especially with the new $79, light-as-a-feather Kindle and iPhone 5 on the way, I can't fit this thing into my life.

Vibram Five Fingers Alternatives: Cheap, Practical Barefoot Shoes

Due to a few New York Times articles and the release of the bestselling Born to Run, barefoot running has recently gotten a lot more popular. Studies have shown that the heel-striking step produced by modern running shoes is an inefficient, injury-prone way to run, and that barefoot running, or running in unpadded, unstructured footwear, reduces injuries, strengthens legs, and brings us closer to the stride our bodies evolved to use.

Companies are fast to turn scientific discovery into marketable product, hence the release of the Vibram Five Fingers (VFF). These five-toed shoes feature a thin, unstructured (but durable and grippy) sole, and aim to recreate the experience of barefoot walking and running while protecting feet from the hazards of modern society.

The VFF's have a few issues, though. For starters, they're ugggly (my girlfriend put a lifetime veto on them once she saw this post). Recent releases like the Moc are a little more low-profile, but wearing these guys is asking for attention, and I doubt you can get away with it in most business settings. Second, they're expensive, starting at $60 and climbing over $100 for the higher-end models. That much for a shoe meant to approximate not wearing any shoes? Hikers may enjoy the grippy vibram sole, but most will find these too expensive or out-there for everyday wear.

I like the idea of barefoot running, so I thought I'd do a little research on more practical alternatives to the Vibram Five Fingers:

1) Feiyue Wushu Shoes

I love these! Like every Western innovation, it seems the Chinese had it first. These martial-arts shoes have a simple, unpadded rubber sole and an unassuming canvas upper. In white or black, they look like generic sneakers, perfect for wearing with jeans, shorts, or whatever. The sole isn't quite as flexible as I'd hoped, but it's not bad, and the lack of a heel is a big part of encouraging good running form. The best part? The unbeatable price of $14.95 on Amazon. Cheaper than Chucks!

2) Soft Star Shoes

These handmade, unconstructed moccasins run $60-85, and feature natural materials and a thin, unpadded sole. The styling is interesting; I can see them looking good with jeans in a sort of earthy, rugged way, but they also might come across as a little too whimsical and elfish for more modern styling or in formal settings. Update: Looks like they also have a perforated-leather athletic version on the way.

3) Huarache running sandals

A modern version of the running sandals worn by the Tarahumara tribe featured in Born to Run, Huaraches are simply constructed from a thin 3mm Vibram sole and a single leather or synthetic lace. With one of the more subtle lace options, they really look no different from other sandals, but you get a thinner sole and more secure fastening than flip-flops or chacos. At $20-25 for a DIY kit or $50-60 for custom-made shoes, they're available from InvisibleShoe.com and Barefoot Ted.

4) Karate Shoes / Ballet Flats

Amazon and other online retailers offer a variety of flat-soled shoes for dance and martial arts. They lack the grippy, rugged sole of dedicated barefooting shoes, but should work fine for indoor use. If you're really into them, it probably wouldn't be hard to glue some 3mm Vibram Cherry on the bottom and use them everywhere. You can find these as low as $7, so they're a great budget buy.

5) Terra Plana Vivo Barefoot

These are the shoes I've been waiting for. Casual to business-casual styling, thin, unpadded soles, and high-quality construction should let you wear these from the office to the park with healthy feet and without attracting unwanted attention. The only downside is the price: with most models running $120-150, these are pretty luxe for such simple shoes. Maybe once I'm rolling in cash money, but it still seems like a silly amount to pay for minimalism.

6) Kigo

This recent entry into the barefoot market produces two models: the unisex Shel, and the female Mary Jane-esque Star. Consensus seems to be that they're not as flexible as other barefoot shoes, but their portability and cute, discreet style makes up for it. They're also at the lower end of barefoot shoes, priced at $49 retail.

7) Feelmax

Lightweight, thin-soled shoes from Finland with minimalist sneaker styling. The sole is supposedly one of the thinnest around, which provides great groundfeel but might compromise durability. Around $80, plus shipping from Europe. One unique aspect to the company is their Kuuva boot, the only men's barefooting boot I've seen.

8) Nike Free

Nike actually got into the barefoot simulation game before Vibram, with the first Free in 2006. They've got a slightly higher heel than most barefoot shoes, but I've heard it's gotten lower in the newer generations, and the sole is really flexible. They look a lot like other Nike running shoes, and come in standard athletic colors as well as a few subdued colorways for casual wear. $85 retail, though you can find past seasons for significantly less.

9) Newton Running Shoes

Possibly the worst barefoot shoes ever: $175 for no more functionality, style, or practicality than other offerings that cost half as much. The company claims the shoes have a patented design that "minimizes detrimental heel-striking, promotes forefoot striking, increases speed, and prevents injury with some runners." Funny thing is, that sounds exactly like what you get from a basic thin, unpadded sole...or no shoes at all. Reviews at Gear Junkie and The Running Ninja.

10) Chucks / Vans / Keds / Adidas Sambas

Old-school sneakers have thicker, stiffer soles than dedicated barefooting shoes, but they tend to have lower heels and less padding than more "anatomical" shoes, and should be better for your joints. Plus, they're cheap, come in a million different styles and colors, and won't stand out on the street. (Thanks for the Samba tip, funhouser)

11) Toms

Thinner-soled, trendier keds, essentially. They're pricey for basic sneakers ($45+), but for every pair you buy, they give one to a child in need. Cool!

12) Bare feet

The oldest, cheapest, and simplest footwear out there. There's a large community of lifestyle barefooters out there, and they'll tell you it's possible to run, hike, navigate most social situations, and live comfortably with nothing on your feet. I wouldn't try it at the workplace or the winter months, but I love running outdoors unshod. Your legs get stronger, blisters are an impossibility, and you develop a wonderful feel for the ground.

13) Inov-8

Looks like these are a lighter version of Nike Free. With 29 different models for both trail and urban running, and prices down into the $50-60 range, this might be a company to watch. Thanks for the tip, wesleet!

14) Water Socks / Water Shoes

 Thanks to Brentastic for this suggestion. Water Aqua shoes are reviewed as runners here, and it looks like they perform pretty well.

Top choices:

Outdoors use: Vibram Five Fingers, Huaraches, or Bare Feet

Outdoor on a budget: Huaraches

Indoors / Everyday use: Terra Plana Barefoot, Kigo (Star only)

Everyday on a budget: Feiyue, Chucks/Toms

Winter: Feelmax

Going Hyperfocal on the Panasonic LX3

Panasonic just released a software update that makes my LX3 camera a whole lot sweeter. The extra settings seem simple- they simply added options to remember your zoom and focus settings when you turn the camera off- but they turn the LX3 into an awesome little camera for street photography.

Let me explain: even we talk about focusing a camera to a specific distance, it's really focused to a range of distances, which we call its depth of field (the depth of the in-focus area). A few factors affect this depth, namely sensor size, aperture, and focal length (how far zoomed in you are). For example, on a normal film camera with a 28mm lens focused to 10 feet at f/2, everything from 9.5 to 10.6 feet should be in focus.

Usually we think of bigger sensors as being better in photography, but smaller sensors, such as those in compact cameras, have much bigger depths of field. Using the same settings as the camera above on my LX3, everything from 4.2 feet to infinity is in focus! When everything from an arbitrary distance on out is in focus, a camera is hyperfocal, and you can pretty much just point, shoot, and know your pictures will be sharp. Ever wonder why you don't need to focus disposable cameras? It's because they're set to a hyperfocal aperture.

Unless you've got a big DSLR with a super-fast autofocus system, using hyperfocal settings on cameras is essential for great action snapshots. If I zoom all the way out and focus about two feet in front of me, I'm in focus from 1 foot all the way to infinity. This lets me point the camera at anything, hit the shutter, and know I'll get a good shot. People always whine about compact cameras taking a long time to focus, but most of this time is used focusing. If you're already focused, many cameras have under 1/10th of a second lag between when you push the shutter and when it takes a picture. Combined with a wide lens, you can take pictures in situations where you don't have time to focus and frame your shot.

Anyway, the LX3 could go hyperfocal before, but because it didn't save zoom and focus settings, you would have to spend a second or two focusing each time you switched it on. With the new firmware, it's easy to reach into a pocket, switch the camera on, and pop off a shot right away.

I liked the LX3 pretty well when I got it, but the longer I play with it, the more fun it gets. I made myself a cool little automatic lens cap that solved one of my biggest annoyances with the camera, and I'm working on a flash diffuser for better skin tones indoors. On top of its hyperfocal features, its wide (24mm) lens and ability to take 2+ shots a second make the LX3 is one of the best cameras out there for nailing random, candid action wherever you are. Little cameras like mine may not be able to keep up with SLRs in absolute performance, but the best camera is the one that's with you, and the LX3 is pretty darn portable.

Headphone Review: Denon AH-C551

My Etymotic ER6i's just bit it. I don't know whether I stressed the cable with my party-hard lifestyle, or whether it's the manufacturer's fault, but the right bud only plays at about half-volume, and the left only gives me a tinny buzz. For what it's worth, when they worked, they sounded good, but not so good I'd pay the extra 100% or so they charge for them in Japan.

So I needed new phones. Train rides are pretty boring without a soundtrack, and I had an iPod full of my newly discovered favorite band, Futurecop! I went to Bic camera, where you can try out any, and I mean any, headphones they sell, from dinky $20 JVC ones up to $1000 Grados (Eargasm!). Some let you connect them to your own music player, which is cool, but even better are the ones that connect them all to the same sound source simultaneously, so you can do A/B testing.

I went through phones from Sennheiser, Sony, Shure, Klipsch, and Audio Technica before I found these guys. The Sony and Sennheiser phones were bassy and dancy but had some sibilance issues and no warmth for jazz and acoustic tracks, and the others were either a little too flat, lacking bass, or just too expensive for me. I don't need phones that make everything sound like a dancehall, but I like them tuned a little on the rocking side of life. When you get down to it, though, I think the $50-$100 price point is a really sweet spot for earbuds, where almost anything you get is going to be twice as good as the ones that came with your mp3 player, and not lacking much compared to other headphones in the manufacturers' line. I probably could have bought any of the ones I tried and been perfectly satisfied.

These Denon AH-C551's, though, felt right, so I went for them. The bass is big, but they added an open bass port (that hole on the back) that cleans it up, and as for the rest of the sound spectrum, does classy but not dull make sense? Rock and dance tracks pop out just fine, but there's no annoying edginess on tracks that are meant to be listened to flat.

Are they as good as my passed-away Etymotics? I think my perception of those phones is probably colored by the way their sound quality decayed over the last few weeks, but I was pretty blown away when I first got them, and I think they kept the highs cleaner than the Denons. On the other hand, they cost a good deal more than these (MSRP on the Denons is $99, but you usually pay around half that), and the bass wasn't near as present. Also, they broke, so screw 'em.

Small, Light, and Cheap: Falling in Love with Netbooks

Up until now, I've been working on a 17" Macbook Pro laptop. It's a great computer, and I love the big screen and keyboard, but it's really too big to big and heavy to carry anywhere.

I was interested in a netbook, a new breed of cheap, small, low-powered laptops, so-called because they don't have enough power to do much else than word processing and internet browsing. Honestly, though, what else do you need in life? The only programs I run that need a half-decent machine are Photoshop and Lightroom, and I don't have much of a need for that while I'm at school or on the go.

It took netbooks a while to evolve into something that appealed to me, though. While the combination of small and cheap appeals to me, until lately, "small" also applied to the machines' keyboards and screens. Staring at an 8.9" screen all day and typing on a miniscule keyboard doesn't really appeal to me. On top of that, the first netbooks, like the Asus Eee PC, look like plastic-y, easily breakable toys.

In the last year, though, MSI, Dell, HP, Asus, and Samsung have started to roll out more mature laptops, with 10-12" screens, nearly full-sized keyboards, and more solid, professional-looking builds. Here's my quick take on the current big players in the 10-inch-plus netbook market:

 

• Battery life king: Samsung NC10

 

• Biggest screen/ Macbook Air killer: Dell Mini 12 (Beautiful screen but underpowered)

 

• Small and light: HP Mini 1000 (Best keyboard, and super-thin for it's screen size, but lame battery life) , Asus S101 (I'd buy this if I had money to burn)

 

• Easiest time running Mac OS X: MSI Wind (great photo gallery of the Wind becoming the "MacBook Nano"), Lenovo S10

 

I ended up settling on the Samsung NC10, mainly because it looked like a good all-around model with great battery life. To be honest, though, all the newest books on the market are pretty darned similar, and if there's one little feature that strikes your fancy, you can rest assured you're probably not missing out on much by just going ahead and basing your decision on that.

This is a great little laptop. The keyboard is big and solid, the screen is easy to read, and can get eye-hurtingly bright at it's highest setting, and it's small enough that I can type this post out on a crowded subway car without getting elbowed by the guys sitting next to me.

Speaking of small:

 

It's completely dwarfed by my MacBook Pro, and under half the weight (2.8lb vs. 6 or 7). I can slip it in the smallest bag; it's about the size of a large-ish paperback.

I eventually want to run Mac OS X on it, but I'm waiting till the guys at InsanelyMac (a community built around running OS X on non-apple hardware) perfect the install guide. That said, this thing runs Windows XP real zippy, and thanks to a few nifty free pieces of software, I've adjusted XP to add several functions that make it a little more like Mac OS, and a lot less sucky. It also runs my favorite chat client ever, Digsby, the only windows program I like better than its Mac alternative.

If a netbook interests you, there are three sites worth checking out:

LaptopMag, a great portal for all sorts of laptop reviews and roundups.

Lilliputing (Lilliput + Computing = cute!), a blog devoted wholly to netbooks.

InsanelyMac, a community of awesome hackers dedicated to running Mac OS X, the best operating system ever, on all sorts of non-apple hardware.