Mitch Wagner's Blog

E-books on the iPad

2010-07-29T10:35:03-07:00

When I first got the iPad, I started reading e-books on it exclusively, eschewing paper books. I thought that maybe I’d gravitate back to paper books when the novelty of the iPad wears off.

Nearly four months later, and there’s no sign of that happening. I just like reading books on the iPad. It’s the free sample chapters that get me, and their opportunity for instant gratification. Read the first chapter of a book, if you like it, buy it on the spot, if you don’t like it, you’re not out any money.

I prefer the Amazon Kindle app to the iBooks app, because the Kindle app is available on multiple platforms, but the iBooks app is only available on iOS. I might switch to another tablet platform in a few years — I want to be able to take my digital library with me.

I wrote these articles about reading and writing on the iPad:

8 highly useful apps for reading and writing on the iPad

Also:

4 iPad apps for hand-writing and idea-sketching

Apple investigating iPhone 3G software complaints

2010-07-29T09:36:58-07:00

Users of old iPhone 3Gs are complaining about slowness and bugginess on their phones after upgrading to the latest operating system version. Now, Apple is looking into the problem.

I wrote about my experiences upgrading my iPhone 3G to iOS 4 in late June, when the new operating system version came out. I wrote, "As for performance: There doesn't seem to be any net change over iOS 3.x. My faithful iPhone 3G doesn't seem to run any faster under iOS 4, but it doesn't seem to run any slower either."

But readers told a different story. They expressed their frustration in comments on that blog. Reader Kevin Lynch complained of "slow response, applications crashing repeatedly, typing in apps like iFitness taking forever, text message response unbearably slow etc. etc."

Read the rest of my post at the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: Apple investigating iPhone 3G software complaints

Tips for posting iPhone 4 videos to YouTube

2010-07-28T09:40:33-07:00

The iPhone 4 lets you easily share great, high-definition videos to YouTube. But there are a couple of gotchas to watch out for. After banging my head against the keyboard for a day trying to figure out why I couldn't get high-definition videos to post, I'll pass along what I learned, so you can save wear and tear on your forehead.

I started my learning experience Sunday evening, as I was wrapping up my post on iPhone 4 photography at Comic-Con. I'd done everything except upload my video to YouTube. I was in a rush to get done and watch the season premiere of Mad Men.

I'd already sidestepped the first iPhone-YouTube gotcha. The iPhone takes nice high-definition 720p video, and you can share that video through e-mail, or through the iPhone's built-in YouTube uploader. However, the problem with sharing video directly from the iPhone is that the iPhone steps on the video quality, compressing it before sending it, making your nice, high-definition video not-so-nice and decidedly low-definition

You can use the free PixelPipe or PicPosterous iPhone apps to share your videos in their full high-definition glory. But I didn't want to mess with that over the weekend. I exported the videos from my iPhone to my desktop using iPhoto on the Mac, and watched the video there. The video looked great, nice and sharp and clear.

I uploaded the video file straight from my desktop to YouTube using the Web uploader. And when I looked at the video on YouTube, it looked pixellated and jaggy and terrible.

Read the rest of my post at the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: Tips for posting iPhone 4 videos to YouTube

Trying to decide if I want Apple's new Magic Trackpad

2010-07-27T10:08:29-07:00

On the one hand, it’s the N!E!W S!H!IN!Y from Apple, so of course I want it.

On the other hand, it’s a trackpad. I’ve never really liked trackpads. I like a trackball. I really like my Logitech Trackball Wheel.

Also,“Magic Trackpad” sounds gross. It sounds like a phrase uttered by a child-molesting department-store Santa. “Come and sit on my Magic Trackpad, little girl.” Ick.

Is jailbreaking iPhones a business opportunity?

2010-07-27T09:10:30-07:00

The U.S. government this week decided that jailbreaking iPhones doesn't violate copyright law. Does that mean we'll start to see businesses cropping up selling legally hacked, customized iPhones?

The U.S. Copyright Office and Library of Congress announced Monday that jailbreaking is one of several practices that don't violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Modifications purely for the purpose of making an iPhone, or other, similarly protected device, compatible with third-party software are fair use, Marybeth Peters, register of Copyrights, wrote in a ruling. She described jailbreaking as "innocuous at worst, and beneficial at best."

Read the rest of my post at the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: Is jailbreaking iPhones a business opportunity?

The iPhone 4 goes to San Diego Comic-Con

2010-07-26T10:39:07-07:00

With a convention center full of costume-clad fans, San Diego's annual Comic-Con is always a great opportunity to people-watch and take pictures. I dropped by Saturday to give the camera on my new iPhone 4 a good workout.

The camera is one of my favorite things about the iPhone 4. I've always liked photography. I don't like fooling around with settings, I just want to point my camera at something, take a picture, and share it with other people.

I was really looking forward to getting the iPhone 4, with its advanced new still and video camera capabilities. The timing, for me, was perfect; I got the phone a couple of weeks before Comic-Con, time to get comfortable with it before taking it to the show.

I'd already reviewed the iPhone 4 camera compared with the camera on the HTC EVO 4G, and made a complete comparison of both phones. But Comic-Con is a whole new level of testing for a camera, there's lots of stuff going on around you at all times. How well would the iPhone 4 fare?

Very well, it turns out. I was already very happy with the iPhone 4, and the Comic-Con workout makes me even happier.

Previous generations of iPhones had weak cameras, even by cameraphone standards. But the camera on the iPhone 4 is one of its great strengths. It's a respectable point-and-shoot camera.

Read the rest of my post at the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: The iPhone 4 goes to San Diego Comic-Con

In honor of Mad Men's return, two old ads that don't look so good today

2010-07-25T20:40:59-07:00

What single feature of today's cars assures maximum safety? I'll name three -- baby sits facing front, wears a seat-belt, and Mom keeps her freakin eyes on the road.

Also, this isn't going to get you a visit from the Division of Youth and Family Services, nossir.

Jameson's on the rocks

2010-07-25T14:17:58-07:00

Mitch Wagner

Jameson's on the rocks

2010-07-25T14:17:56-07:00

Mitch Wagner

Birthday presents from Julie

2010-07-23T18:05:01-07:00

iPhone accessories. I've been thinking I need something like these.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Blogging gets new life

2010-07-23T09:59:42-07:00

Social media like Twitter and Facebook aren't killing blogging. Social media make blogging stronger.

Cory Doctorow writes that blogging isn't dying, "it's just that other social media have taken over many of its functions."

When blogging was the easiest, most prominent way to produce short, informal, thinking-aloud pieces for the net, we all blogged. Now that we have Twitter, social media platforms and all the other tools that continue to emerge, many of us are finding that the material we used to save for our blogs has a better home somewhere else. And some of us are discovering that we weren't bloggers after all – but blogging was good enough until something more suited to us came along.

Read the rest of my post at the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: Blogging gets new life

Review of "That Old Cape Magic," by Richard Russo

2010-07-22T20:00:10-07:00

I somehow missed this one when it came out last year, although I’m something of a Richard Russo fanatic. Russo is the author of Nobody’s Fool, which was made into a movie starring Paul Newman, about a 60-year-old handyman who is just growing up. He also wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning Empire Falls.

Russo seems to write two kinds of books: One type is books about people living in decaying small towns in upstate New York and Maine. The other type is comprised of and Straight Man (1997) and last year’s That Old Cape Magic, which are about middle-aged academics going through midlife crises.

Science fiction fans like to denigrate literary fiction by saying it’s both by and about middle-aged academics going through midlife crises. So it’s nice to actually find an example of the cliche in the real world. When science fiction fans denigrate literary fiction, they make it sound all dreary, depressing and boring. Russo’s academics are frequently depressed, but they’re never bored, and they screw up their lives with great zeal and elan.

The main character of That Old Cape Magic is Griffin, a man in his late 50s who’s been driving around for a year with his father’s ashes in the trunk of his car. His mother is alive, and nags him incessantly on his cell phone. Griffin’s father and mother were academics, English professors bitter about failing to make it to the Ivy League and instead teaching at small colleges in the Midwest — or the Mid-fucking-West, as they like to say. Griffin is a college professor too, and a former Hollywood screenwriter (as is Russo himself). When the novel opens, Griffin is on his way to Cape Cod for the wedding of his daughter’s best friend. It’s like driving into the past for Griffin; summers on the Cape Cod are the only time he can remember his parents being happy. Or, as close to being happy as they ever got.

At the opening of the novel, Griffin is as close to being happy as he’s ever going to get. He has a wife who he loves and who loves him back, he has a great job, and a great family and friends. The novel goes on to describe how he nearly destroys it all.

Which, like I said, sounds pretty depressing, but which Russo actually handles with great humor and joy.

The novel jumps backward and forward in time much in the way life does, something happens in the present day and it reminds Griffin of something that happened long ago.

The novel has as many twists and turns as any science fiction or mystery story. I found myself staying up hours past my bedtime to read on and find out what happens next. Russo has delightful little bits of humorous observation and jokes.

One note that I find interesting as a technology nerd and Russo fan: Contemporary technology is mostly missing from Russo’s previous books, but the characters of That Old Cape Magic live in the 21st Century. They use the Internet, they Google, and conversations on cell phones and via instant messaging are central to the plot.

iPhone 4 vs. HTC EVO 4G real-world camera test

2010-07-22T10:01:52-07:00

I tested video and still photo quality for the Apple iPhone 4 and the
HTC EVO 4G running Android. Take a look and judge for yourself which
is the best.

I take a lot of pictures. I like to have a little point-and-shoot that
I can aim and click whenever I see something interesting, and share
those photos on the Internet. Serious photographers approve of my
philosophy. "The best camera," they say, "is the one you always have
with you."

And I always have my smartphone with me. This year, cameraphones are
competitive with good point-and-shoot cameras for image quality. When
I started to plan to upgrade my aging iPhone 3G in the spring, one of
my top criteria for a replacement was that the new smartphone had to
have a great camera.

I compared two of the top-of-the-line smartphones, the HTC EVO 4G,
available from Sprint, and the Apple iPhone 4. For a complete comparison of both phones, check out my feature article on
Computerworld today. For now, let's talk a bit about the cameras.

Both phones have great cameras. Each phone has two cameras: A
rear-facing, high-quality camera, and a front-facing, lower quality
camera, for videoconferencing and self-portraits (which the Young
People Nowadays call "selfies"). Both cameras also have LED flashes.

Read the rest of my post at the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: iPhone 4 vs. HTC EVO 4G real-world camera test

Real-world testing: iPhone 4 vs. HTC EVO 4G

2010-07-22T08:50:11-07:00

Our writer spent a few weeks with the Apple iPhone 4 and the HTC
EVO 4G. Which came out ahead?

I've been using an iPhone
for three years now, first the original iPhone then the 3G. I like the
iPhone a lot -- but I'm not married to it. When I began hearing great
things about the Sprint's Android
phone, the HTC EVO 4G, I thought hard about switching. And although I eventually decided to upgrade to the iPhone 4, I was curious what I was missing.

The good people at Sprint let me borrow an EVO for a few weeks, and I
compared it to my personal iPhone 4. I found that there were a lot of
factors where one phone excelled over the other -- but that, in the
end, it was hard to choose between them.

What follows are my observations about how the two phones compared in
a variety of aspects. In each case, I've chosen the phone I think is
the winner in each category -- when there was a winner.

Read the rest of my Computerworld feature article: Real-world testing: iPhone 4 vs. HTC EVO 4G

7 greatest hits from Apple's quarterly earnings call

2010-07-21T10:24:20-07:00

Apple continues to party like it's 1999, the height of the dotcom
boom. While other companies struggle with the recession, Apple turned
in another banner quarter, breaking revenue records and enjoying
voracious demand for the iPad, the iPhone and Mac. Here are seven
highlights from Tuesday's earnings call.

Recession? Apple hasn't heard about it.

Mac and iPad sales pushed Apple to record revenue in the third quarter, with
sales of $15.7 billion, up 61% year-over-year, and net profit of $3.25
billion.

The iPhone bug doesn't seem to have hurt sale

Consumer enthusiasm for the iPhone 4 doesn't seem to have been
diminished by reports of problems with the device's antenna. We can't know for sure, the quarter
closed June 26, before reports of the problem became widespread, and
just two days after the phone went on sale. We won't really know how
much the iPhone 4 problem hurt sales until the next quarterly
conference call.

Read the rest of my post at the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: 7 greatest hits from Apple's quarterly earnings call

Highway overpass (photo)

2010-07-21T09:02:23-07:00

Mitch Wagner

Duke's Liquor (photo)

2010-07-21T09:01:31-07:00

Mitch Wagner

Regulate Google? Why not? It worked great for BP

2010-07-20T08:23:49-07:00

A recent editorial in the New York Times argues that Google has become
so important that it requires oversight to be sure its search engine
algorithm is fair. But the Times fails to show that there are any
problems at Google, or that government regulation would help.

In an editorial entitled "The Google Algorithm," the Times writes, "a case is building
for some sort of oversight of the gatekeeper of the Internet."

Read the rest of my post at the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: Regulate Google? Why not? It worked great for BP

Canna lily flower (photo)

2010-07-19T19:07:15-07:00

It's growing in our backyard artificial bog.

What Steve Jobs should have said about the iPhone 4 antenna

2010-07-19T11:31:46-07:00

The iPhone's antenna design was a trade-off: You get better reception
under most conditions, and a smaller phone with better battery life.
Unfortunately, under some conditions, you'll get worse reception.

That's what Steve Jobs should have said on Friday. Daring Fireball's
John Gruber makes that point in his analysis following Apple's
unusual press conference, where CEO Steve Jobs and top executives
defended the iPhone 4 against criticism that poor antenna design leads
to dropped calls when users touch the bottom-left edge of the device.
Gruber writes:

What I took away from the press conference is that Apple
believes the iPhone 4 antenna is better than the previous iPhone
antennas, but it has a more sensitive “weak spot”. And, that more
sensitive weak spot is inherent to the external antenna design. In
short, that it’s a trade-off — better signal quality overall, better
aesthetics, more structural rigidity, even better battery life because
there’s room for a bigger battery without an internal antenna. The
trade-off is that all of those benefits come at the expense of a more
sensitive “weak spot”. (I put that in quotes because it’s Jobs’s term
for the infamous lower-left gap in the antenna frame.)

Read the rest of my post at the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog: What Steve Jobs should have said about the iPhone 4 antenna

Colorado Avenue, a block from our house (pic)

2010-07-18T13:48:10-07:00

Mitch Wagner

Today's Lake Murray photos

2010-07-18T13:16:03-07:00

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Where scientists are jerks and aliens masturbate

2010-07-18T10:39:32-07:00

IO9.com’s Josh Wimmer and Alasdair Wilkins look at the Asimov novel,, which I read when it came out in the 70s, when I was a teen-ager consuming oceans of science fiction. The problem with reading a book like The Gods Themselves in that state is I missed out on the commentary Asimov is making on his own career, and genre conventions of sf.

Asimov wrote the book after a 15-year absence from science fiction novels. The genre had changed a lot during that time, gone from pulp roots to being more experimental and literary. I’m oversimplifying here. In fact, writers who came of age in the 50s, like Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, were plenty literary. And a lot of the experimentation going on in the 60s was nearly 50 years old in literary fiction, playing off of Joyce and other writers of that ilk.

Still, Asimov had a reputation then as one of the greatest writers in the genre, but also as a creature of the pulps, possibly obsolete, and one who’d never written aliens or sex, either. He didn’t write sex because it just Wasn’t Done in the pulps, and because he wasn’t comfortable with it, and he didn’t write aliens because he was busy doing other things. He’d made his career writing stories about an all-human galaxy-spanning civilization in the Foundation novels, and about robots in I, Robot and other books.

The first section of The Gods Themselves is almost a parody of early Asimov, and of pulp, IO9 notes. There are no female characters at all, and the main character is a brave, stubborn scientist. The main character is also a dick.

The second section introduces the aliens, and the sex, and the alien sex. The aliens are divided into two groups: The Soft Ones and the Hard Ones. How did I miss that double entendre when I read the book? Oh, yeah, right, I was a virgin.

Asimov is playing with the sexism of the genre. The protagonist if the second section, Dua, isn’t female as we understand the word, but she is a girl — and a silly girl at that. The aliens in this novel have three sexes: Rational, Parental, and Emotional. Dua is an Emotional, which makes her a girl by our definition, but she shows herself to be quite heroic. Grrl power, ftw!

One of the main themes of the book is about the irrationality of scientists, and how that irrationality undercuts science. The scientific and business establishment of The Gods Themselves are built on a free, limitless source of energy called the Electron Pump. Some upstart scientists discover that the Electron Pump is actually destroying the universe, and struggle to get the scientific and business establishment to listen. This is a theme that was current when Asimov wrote the novel in the 70s, when anti-pollution efforts had just begun to get teeth, and crackpot nutritionists were trying to get people to believe that a diet of fatty processed food wasn’t healthy. It’s current today, given the arguments about global warming and vaccination. Our own source if energy, petroleum, isn’t destroying the universe, like the fictional Electron Pulp, but it certainly seems to be a fountain of bloodshed in the Middle East, and making a mess of the Gulf. I suspect Asimov’s themes will be current as long as the human race is still around.

I need to re-read The Gods Themselves.

Off the Shelf interviews me about technology, books, and Second Life

2010-07-17T15:33:48-07:00

I talked with Off the Shelf, a Second Life interview program, about technology, writing, social media, Second Life, and more. This is actually a March interview, which I’m just now getting around to posting.

Listen to me being interviewed on BBC Newshour about Apple antennagate

2010-07-17T12:09:16-07:00

The BBC Newshour led its report Friday with a segment about Apple’s iPhone 4 antenna problems. They interviewed me for a few minutes, starting 5 minutes, 5 seconds in.

This is my second interview with Auntie Beeb. Both times, they've given my name the German pronunciation, “Vogner,” first syllable rhyming with “log.” My family pronounces it like it’s spelled, first syllable “Wag,” rhyming with— well, just ask any 5th grade boy what “wag” rhymes with. (NOT THAT I’M STILL CARRYING ANY DEEP-SEATED RESENTMENT!!!!!)

Interestingly, the BBC approached Michael Mace, who headed Apple’s home and education division 1987-97 and held high-level positions at Palm 1999-2001. But they interviewed me instead. Mace makes a couple of good points: “What I would have told the BBC about the Apple iPhone antenna, if they’d actually wanted to hear it.”