The TL;DR version is that I feel like The Verge’s review was spot on and at the end of the day, the device had too many compromises for me to justify the price tag. It’s a well made device with lots of potential, but that potential isn’t realized today.

My Priorities

I had (and loved) my Acer convertible TabletPC back in 2004/2005. It was perfect for college when combined with OneNote. I really want something just as useful today for taking notes, doing some diagraming/whiteboarding, basic sketching, and photo editing. The pen was great back then, but multi touch was missing. A pen combined with multi touch technology seems like it would make an excellent note taking device and that was my main driver with the Surface Pro.

As a secondary benefit, it would be nice to have a Windows development machine that is portable, yet powerful enough to handle any tasks I need. I have a Windows 8 desktop and I have a 17” MacBook Pro that has a Windows 8 boot camp partition, but neither of those are really as portable as I would want. I’m mostly an iOS developer these days, so this feature isn’t critical, but it’s certainly a nice to have.

Finally, it would be great if I could play most of my Steam games (even on low settings). I’m not usually at my Windows desktop most of the day, but it’d be nice to be able to pop in and play a little Borderlands or Diablo 3 without having to be tied to my office machine. This is a very low priority, but I’d be another nice to have.

Initial Impression

The Surface Pro looks and feels really nice. The build quality is excellent. The pen is the only component that feels a little cheaper, but it’s a light tube of shiny black plastic compared to the solid slab of metal and glass. The screen is bright, vibrant, and clear. I’m not a fan of the 16:9 aspect ratio, but most people don’t seem to mind it. The out of the box setup is fast and simple – I think it actually had less setup steps than my iPad which is impressive from Microsoft.

The kickstand is solid and the USB 3.0 port is blazing fast (if you have a good USB drive). The kickstand is nice and works excellently when propping the device on the counter to watch Netflix while cooking. It works great in laptop mode on a solid surface, but it’s hit or miss when using it as a laptop on your lap. It works, but I had to keep fiddling with it to get it to balance properly and to get the screen at a good viewing angle.

Overall, the Surface Pro is a very impressive package.

Type Cover

Since I knew I’d be using it as a laptop whenever I wasn’t taking notes, I picked up a Type Cover. The Type Cover is one of the best tablet keyboards I’ve used. It took about an hour for me to adjust to it, but after that, it felt great. The magnetic connector is very secure and I had no concerns about it sliding off in my backpack like my iPad’s Logitech Ultra-thin Keyboard does. The trackpad area is very responsive, but it’s so small, it’s unusable unless you’re in a pinch.

The big downside is that the keyboard has some serious responsiveness issues if you use it on your lap or any other non-solid surface. I would randomly experience ignored key-presses – not just once or twice, but nearly half the time. I’d have to press the key 3 or 4 times to get it to register the key press. The keyboard was barely flexed, but I never experienced this when using it on a solid surface.

At $130 on top of the Surface Pro’s price, it’s not a cheap cover at all, but to me, this is a must have if you buy a Surface or Surface Pro and expect to do any decent amount of typing.

The Pen

The pen is really well done. It’s Wacom tech, which means it’s very accurate and there is zero noticeable lag between pen movement and when the “ink” shows up on the screen. It has great pressure sensitivity and feels like a ballpoint pen in your hand. I really wish Microsoft included a slot for the pen.

The pen magnetically connects to the device via the power port. That means you have to leave your pen on the table while you charge the Surface Pro. I was constantly checking the pen when I was carrying the tablet to meetings – the connector magnets are strong, but depending on how you hold the tablet, it’s really easy to knock the pen off and never notice it’s lost. This was particularly a problem for me when I would pick the tablet up. The pen never detached while it my backpack, but it would nearly always detach when I picked up the tablet from the side (usually when I was pulling it out of my backpack).

In use, the pen worked great – particularly with OneNote 2013. I wish there was a little texture on the screen of the Surface Pro so there was a little bit of resistance, but I’m sure that would impact the quality of the display in other ways. The pen is every bit as good as I was expecting.

Tablet Mode

I know it’s not a big surprise to anyone, but there is still no ecosystem of Windows 8 touch interface apps. I found a few third party apps (Stacks for Instapaper & Nextgen Reader come to mind) that were nice. The Netflix app was excellent – it’s probably the best implementation of Netflix I’ve seen on any device. Outside of that, I found the app selection to be really, really lacking.

Microsoft has plenty of their own apps for calendaring, email, address book, etc. All of these apps work, but they are about as basic as you can get. I’m actually OK with basic for the most part, but Microsoft decided not to support CardDAV and CalDAV protocols in the contacts app and calendar app respectively. That essentially means I can’t access any of my Google contact or calendar data out of the box. It turns out, you can go to live.com and in an obscure mean, you can link your Google contacts to your live.com account and gain access that way. For calendaring, you can import an iCal feed from the live.com site, but it’s a one way, one time import which is pretty much pointless for me since I can’t see my current Google calendar let alone update it.

When I was using the tablet mode apps, the charms and multitouch gestures work well for the most part. The charms make a heck of a lot more sense when using them with touch vs a mouse on my Windows 8 desktop. I love the share charm. It makes a ton of sense when apps implement it properly and I genuinely hope something like this is implemented on iOS and Android in the future. I had some trouble moving tiles on the desktop – sometimes it would think I’m was trying to scroll, sometimes it would select the tile, and sometimes it would move the tile. Overall, the experience using the touch interface was very positive, but there just aren’t any apps to use there and Microsoft needs to step up their game with their built-in apps – both in features and interoperability with other services (specifically Google accounts).

One day in the future, the tablet experience on a Windows 8 device may be excellent. The hardware is very responsive overall, but the software needs polish. The biggest deal breaker though is that beyond Kindle, Netflix, and a few other apps, you simply can’t find any apps worth using in tablet mode.

Desktop Mode

The desktop runs extremely smoothly and everything is very snappy thanks to the SSD. I loaded Visual Studio, SQL Server, Resharper, Lightroom, Sketchbook Pro, Chrome, and several other apps that are essential for me. I also installed the Office 365 trial – mainly because I wanted OneNote 2013.

Since Windows doesn’t natively support high density displays and the Surface Pro has a high density display, Windows is set by default to scale the desktop by 150%. The impact of this is that everything on the screen is magnified so icons are reasonably touchable and most system text (menu bars, etc) is readable. In this mode, all of the Microsoft developed apps run great and look really sharp.

Third party apps, (Chrome most notably), were a blur fest. Text was muddy looking and touch detection seemed really flaky. Links wouldn’t activate when I tapped them and Chrome generally acted funny. Sketchbook Pro worked well, particularly with the pen, but it doesn’t support pinch to zoom – you still have to get a zoom tool from the menu bar if you want to pan & zoom and that’s unfortunate. Lightroom ran fine, but it was almost impossible to use the interface via touch. Using a mouse or the Type Cover’s touchpad generally worked fine with these apps even with scaling turned on. I know the Surface Pro is new, but Windows 8’s touch features have been available to developers for quite a while – so I’m curious if third party support will improve.

When I connected my external monitor via mini DisplayPort, everything was blurry – scaling was applied to it as well even though it didn’t need the scaling. I disabled desktop scaling and that solved the external monitor issues and made Chrome look & act normal, but that caused all system text and icons to become super tiny. Using desktop mode with scaling turned off was quite a challenge – ideally, third party apps will be updated to properly work with scaling turned on and to incorporate the new touch API, but I didn’t find a single non-Microsoft app that I use which did that today.

Gaming

For my purposes, this wasn’t critical at all, but I wanted to give it a try so I installed Borderlands 2 and Diablo 3. Borderlands 2 never really ran properly for me. I couldn’t actually select any of the menu items once I got to the game’s main menu. I think this had to do with the desktop scaling, but I didn’t try again after I disabled scaling. The main menu was having trouble rendering at a reasonable rate, so I didn’t have high hopes.

Diablo 3 actually ran nicely. I used a Microsoft Wedge Touch mouse instead of the trackpad on the Type Cover and it was definitely playable. At 1080p, the game stuttered quite a bit even with no enemies on the screen, but dropping the resolution to 720p made things run smoothly. The Surface Pro definitely got very, very warm to the touch (particularly on the top of the unit) and the fans kicked into high gear, but they were still much more quiet than my MacBook Pro’s fans. Diablo looked really nice on the display even though it wasn’t running at full resolution.

Overall Thoughts

My main use case was taking notes and sketches. When doing that, the tablet works well. Navigating OneNote 2013 could be much better though. It’s still a desktop interface designed for a mouse (e.g. you still open up the ribbon menu to get different pen colors, line widths, etc), but once you’re just writing (and not creating a new page, changing pen color, etc) things are good.

The most disappointing thing is that OneNote 2013 feels very much like the original version of OneNote I used on my original TabletPC. As far as ink support and handwriting recognition, that’s a good thing, but it’s very disappointing to see the interface wasn’t updated for touch use. It’s also worth noting that the OneNote app for iOS can’t display ink – it just displays “[ink]” anywhere you wrote with the pen…making my notes useless there. The OneNote web interface does display ink, but my ink was almost unreadable on the web. Ink that was totally readable and regular size on the tablet looked 2x as large on the web and there was no way to zoom out.

I’m really disappointed with the support for 3rd party apps. Specifically Sketchbook Pro 6 and Lightroom 4. Sketchbook handles the pen just fine, but I was really expecting to be able to use pan & zoom via touch since that’s available on every other platform. Lightroom was disappointing – it ran very fast, but without a mouse, it just wasn’t usable on the Surface Pro’s screen. I realize these issues aren’t within Microsoft’s control, but they they definitely impact the value I received from Microsoft’s platform.

My biggest worry is the battery life. I get 3-4 hours with reasonably light use. The battery connector is proprietary and needs to be plugged into the wall – you won’t be charging this off of another PC’s USB port. The power brick is smallish, but it’s something that has to stay in my backpack constantly. If I forget to charge the tablet overnight, there is a good chance I’ll have to plug it up as soon as I get to the office to make sure I have enough juice to make it through a few hour long meetings. I’m used to having my iPad battery last days without worrying about it and for something I need regularly, I really wish I had more than 3-4 hours of power…or at the very least, I wish I could trickle charge it off other nearby computers.

The tablet mode has tons of potential and was a nice experience, but until there are many, many more quality apps, it’s an experience that no one will see. The desktop mode is functional, but I don’t understand why the device has a high density display when Windows clearly isn’t meant to run on one and it’s extremely obvious as soon as any non-Microsoft app is launched.

At the end of the day, I can’t see myself reaching for the Surface Pro instead of my iPad when I have tablet type tasks to do. I also can’t see myself reaching for it over my MacBook Pro when I’m at home and need to do more desktop type tasks. It’s definitely the best device I have for note taking, but due to the really limited battery and several smaller issues, I don’t feel that I can count on it always being ready to go when I need it for note taking.

I’m not set on having one single device that can support all three of these scenarios, so I’m ok using three different devices. The catch is my iPad is really great at being a tablet, my MacBook Pro is really great at being a Mac/PC, but my Surface Pro is only moderately good at being a note taking device outside of the excellent pen support – it’s just a very clunky, disjointed experience and I’m not sure I want to deal with that. There are many good ideas spread across the hardware and software of the Surface Pro, but I don’t feel Microsoft has found a way to combine those pockets of good ideas into a compellingly useful product just yet.

The Prototype Setup

Components

• Arduino Uno R3
• Adafruit Adjustable Breadboard Power Supply
• 12V 1A Regulated Power Adapter
• 2 x N-Channel MOSFET 60V 30A
• 70mm Heatsink and Fan
• 40mm x 40mm Peltier element
• Breadboards, jumper wires, heatsink compound, and a few push buttons

Assembly

I used a few push buttons on the breadboard next the to Arduino so I could control the power to the heatsink’s fan and the TEC. The Arudino’s PWM output is sent to the two MOSFETs which varies the amount of current sent to the fan & TEC. The fan & TEC are both connected to the 12V 1A regulated power supply via the Adafruit breadboard power supply. I originally tried to run the TEC at a lower voltage than 12V by using the adjustable power supply, but it turned out to be easier to just hook both items directly to the 12V supply.

Results

The power supply can’t provide enough power to run the TEC with the MOSFET wide open. One the TEC starts drawing a reasonable amount of power, the fan starts slowing down and evetually, the TEC will draw so much current that everything else shuts down. I was able to run the fan with the MOSFET wide open and the TEC MOSFET set to about 67% power. At those settings, the fan runs (at less than full speed) and the TEC is able to cool quite reasonably. The TEC MOSFET started getting quite hot, so I added a passive heatsink on there.

The at the end of the day, I was able to use the settings above to take the TEC from 75F down to 38F in just a few seconds. I ran the whole setup in this configuration for about 5 minutes with no issues. Overall, I’m very happy to get near freezing temperatures with the relatively small power supply.

Next Steps

I want to get a bigger power supply. I’d really like to get an adjustable lab power supply so I could try different amounts of current to see what exactly I need, but I’m thinking I’ll try a 12V 2A power supply. I need to see how much current I can run through the jumper wires if I upgrade the power. The current test didn’t get the wires hot, but I’m not sure how much more current they’ll take.

At this point, I just need to get the TEC a little cooler while getting the fan to run faster on the heatsink. I’m not too worried about the hinksink though…it never got that hot even with the fan running slower. I’d like to build a small enclosure so I can experiment with cooling air and not just the surface of the TEC. This will probably mean I end up building a styrofoam box (or buying one) and mounting a heatsink & fan on the cold side of the TEC to distribute the cooling power.

So the Surface pricing was revealed as the pre-order page went live on the Microsoft Store. For $499 you get a 32GB tablet without a keyboard. Add $100 and you get a touch cover keyboard with it. Lets be clear here, you’re going to want the keyboard. Yes, it’s designed around touch, but Office is one of the bigger selling points of this tablet and you’re going to want a keyboard.

Assuming you go with the $599 tablet + keyboard combo, what do you get?

Well, you get…

• Windows RT
• Office Home & Student 2013 RT
• Sleek (presumably high build quality) tablet hardware
• An innovative cover / keyboard combo

That’s fine and dandy, but the real question is what can you do with that setup…

• Run the basic first party apps on all mobile platforms like Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Web Browser, etc.
• Run the big hitter 3rd party apps on all mobile platforms like Netflix, Kindle, Evernote, etc.
• Run Office (specifically Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote)

If you don’t see what you do 90% of the time in that list, you’re going to be a bit screwed if you pick up a Surface at launch. Since this is Windows RT and not Windows 8, it looks the same on the surface, but you can’t actually run any of your regular Windows desktop apps. Office doesn’t include apps you may expect like Outlook, nor does it allow you to use certain features like macros…which may or may not be a deal breaker depending on your use case. All apps have to come through the Windows Store as well – this is more like Apple’s iOS than it is the traditional Windows you’re probably expecting.

Sure, there is an a Windows Store for apps now…but you’re going to be very disappointed with the selection if it doesn’t improve drastically between now and the official launch in 10 days. Last I checked, there were 663 games in the store. Of those games, you’ve probably heard of 5 or so of them…I wouldn’t expect much from the rest. All of the other categories are worse. Take the Finance category – there are 46 apps total. Of those 46, 3 are checkbook/budget apps, a couple are currency converters, and the rest are basically stock tickers. You’ll see a few apps like Adobe Lightroom 4, but then you’ll see they are “Desktop Apps” which means they aren’t going to work on your Surface.

After browsing through every category in the store, there just isn’t much substance there. I really thought there would be more useful and/or fun apps at this point, but honestly, I have no idea what people are going to use on their $600 tablet other than the big apps I mentioned earlier. If Office on a tablet is that important to you (and you can live with the Office RT limitations), then maybe this tablet makes a sense for you. Otherwise, you can get the other apps on a device like the Nexus 7 for much cheaper without sacrificing much (if anything).

The worst part of this is the fact that the hardware looks really nice, the battery life sounds like it’s very reasonable, and the hardware specs overall are certainly capable of delivering some compelling experiences. Those experiences just don’t exist in the Windows Store today. I’m afraid the first wave of consumers will pick up the Surface, realize their tablet isn’t backed by a meaningful number of quality apps, and promptly kill any momentum the Surface picks up at launch. Even the version of Office 2013 that ships on the Surface is a “Preview” release…it’s not even finished yet (although it may be perfectly usable as is – who knows).

All in all, I hope Microsoft can pull this one off, but I’m not sure their massive marketing campaign can make up for the lackluster launch lineup once consumers get their shiny new devices home. It’ll be a shame to see such a beautiful hardware design go to waste.

The problem is that I have two very nice automated dry food feeders that I can’t use. Both cats need to be on a schedule to help control their weight. So I started researching wet cat food feeders and it turns out, there aren’t many. Not only that, the feeders that are out there all use ice packs which limit you to 8 or maybe 12 hours of feeding. That’s totally not acceptable to me so I’ve decided I’m going to try to design my own wet cat food feeder.

What

So what is this thing? Well, it’s a small (~2 ft wide) unit that has a certain number of rotating food cups. The food cups can be filled with wet food (or dry food) and the unit can be programmed to expose each food cup to the cats on a specific schedule. The unexposed food will stay seal up inside the unit and a cooling unit will keep the unexposed food nice and cool.

The goal is to have the unit keep food at refridgerated temperatures (TBD what that means) consistently to allow food to be stored in the unit for up to three days. That seems to be the maximum time wet food is allowed to be refridgerated based on manufacturer information, so that’ll be the target for version 1.

If the machine can feed twice a day for an overnight trip or once a day for a long weekend trip, it’ll be fantastic, so that’s the target.

Why

On top of the issues mentioned above, I really want a exposure to the hardware + software world. I’ve worked on software for quite a long time and basically everything I’ve built is totally virtual in nature. That’s all fine and good, but I’m really wanting build something physical. Of course, some software will still be needed, but I’ll also get some electrical engineering, product design, and CAD modeling.

The other part of the why is that I really want to be able to go on a long weekend trip and not have to worry about the cats getting fed. Today, we basically can’t be gone for longer than about 8 hours at a time without having someone come by to feed the cats.

How

I’m planning on building everything with some pretty common parts. The initial design / prototype is going to be all plastic, mainly because I’m getting a 3D printer in December. The general electronics won’t be anything super special. For the prototype, I’ll be using an Arduino Uno for overall control, a motor controller board to rotate the food dish, a external power module to power the cooling system, and a few other random bits.

For cooling, I’m planning on using a Peltier cooler. They aren’t very efficient, but they are relatively easy to use and they can work reasonably well (based on my experience with a little mini fridge). They are also pretty cheap, so it’s quite cost effective from a component perspective. The cooling will be the trickiest aspect of the whole project.

When

Well, I’ve already started playing with the basic components and working on the hardware design (the body of the feeder, not the electronic components). The 3D printer won’t be available until later in December, so I can’t start working on the real prototype until then, but I’ll be able to play with the cooling system this month and into November. My goal is to have a really rough 3D model ready by the time the printer is available. I’m assuming I’ll needed lots of revisions to the plastic parts since all of this (the design process, printing process, and design software) is new to me, but I want to be able to hit the ground running.

As far as the finished product, I’m hoping to have a totally working prototype in Q1 2013. Will that happen? I have no idea, but I really, really want this product so I’d like to have something working sooner rather than later.

What’s Next

I plan to blog my progress on this project. It’s as much for me to keep track of things as it is for everyone else to follow along. Next time, I’ll show the current stage of the design and share some thoughts on the design process as well as the design software I’m using. This should be a fun project, so I hope you have as much fun following along as I’m having building this thing.

What’s Good?

Weight

It’s fantastically light. My MacBook Pro feels like a brick after using the MBA for a while.

Size

Not only is it light, it’s thin. Like, really thin. It’s not really that much thicker than my iPad and that’s impressive when you consider it’s a full featured computer.

Battery Life

I haven’t used it for photo/video editing nor have I used it for games, so my usage is pretty moderate, but still, the battery life is excellent. My MacBook Pro has a good battery life for its size, but the Air has been really impressive. I haven’t timed the battery life, but I can say that I frequently use it for extended periods of time without even thinking about the power cable. That hasn’t been my experience with other laptops (Apple or otherwise).

Solid State Drive

It’s amazing how much of a difference a solid state drive makes. Startup is extremely fast, launching apps is even faster, and even development in a virtual machine is faster.

What’s Bad?

Screen Size

It’s totally usable for most of my everyday tasks, but for things like development, it’s a bit small. The good news is that it powers an external monitor just fine. If you’re on the go and need to do certain kinds of tasks, it’ll feel a bit cramped. I can’t imagine the MacBook Airs line won’t merge with the MacBook Pro line to provide the larger screen sizes in the future.

Other Thoughts

That’s actually the only negative thing I’ve noticed. I happen to have the 4GB RAM/256GB SSD model, so it’s maxed out on the basic specs. It’d be nice if the RAM went up to 8GB, but honestly, 4GB has been plenty (even with large-ish databases loaded) due to the SSD. The storage space may end up being a problem for me down the road if I started storing my main photo library, but I’m undecided how I want to handle that. Overall, the MacBook Air is the best laptop I’ve used for my everyday tasks. I’m sure I’ll find a few things where I miss the power of my PC workstation or my MacBook Pro, but so far, I’ve really impressed.

• Pay off cat medical debt
• Sell (or rent) house
• Launch at least one new iOS game or app
• Get involved with open source

Of course, the standard goals of lose weight, eat better, save more, and the like are all things I plan to work on as well. The goals above are specific to 2012. It should be a fun & exciting year.

WordPress –> Octopress

Nothing was wrong with WordPress itself, but I just didn’t use any of the features it offered. I’d rather just type the blog posts in a regular editor instead of a textbox on a webpage. There are some great tools out there that help with that of course, but I just don’t need the features there either. In addition, maintaining WordPress means logging in pretty often to check for updates, apply them, make sure the database is backed up, etc. All of that would be just fine if I received enough benefit to offset the time there, but I just didn’t.

Enter Heroku

In addition to switching the blogging engine, I moved the physical blog from Linode over to Heroku + Amazon S3. My blog is very low traffic, so I don’t need a high powered VPS host that I have to maintain & patch. Heroku offers a free account if you don’t need much power and can live without a database (well, effectively without a DB – a 5MB one is included). I decided to go ahead and put any post specific images/files onto S3 since Heroku offers a limited amount of local storage and I can also redeploy back to Linode if something doesn’t work out at Heroku. For the record though, I love Linode for a Linux VPS host. I highly recommend them as long as you’re comfortable dealing with Linux via the command line.

Simplicity

As I get older, the technology side of things appeals to me less and less. I still love technology in general, but the nitty gritty details of what platform/framework/OS/whatever is the best is less and less interesting to me. I’m more interested in the best way to deliver a solution in a way that is as simple as possible. That doesn’t mean I’m adverse to complexity under the hood though. It means I value the experience, productivity, and the ability to simply get things done over the technical aspects of a solution.

• Started dating my beautiful girlfriend

• Watched the last launch of Space Shuttle Discovery from the NASA press site thanks to the STS-133 NASATweetup

• Took a great vacation to Charleston, SC

• Turned 30

• Moved 2200 miles from the East Coast to the West Coast for a new job

• Began working a dream job in the space industry

There were some low points in 2011, but overall, it’s been a good year. In a lot of ways, I feel like 2011 was a transitional year. All of the change is mostly finished at this point, so it feels like it’s time for the good stuff to begin. I’m really excited about 2012 – I think like it’s going to be an amazing year.

One quick update though – I did make it to LA just fine and both kitties made it smoothly.  My furniture isn’t here yet, so my apartment is basically empty at the moment, but at least I’m here.  I’ll post more in the near future, but so far, so good.

I got a great send off from my coworkers. A few of them decided to do a little decorating to my cube…

…and my car…

…but the best part was the cupcake. :)

The photos were taken by Matthew Osborne – you can see more of his images here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewosbornephotography/

Release a new app or website

I’ve been working on several ideas over the last year or so and I’m going to really push to get at least one new project released publicly. I’m not going to be more specific other than the new “thing” will must be something anyone can sign up for or download. Open source, closed source, free, or paid – doesn’t matter – I just want to complete v1.0 of a new project.

Max out 401K & Roth IRA

Pretty simple – $16,500 pre-tax dollars into the 401K and $5,000 of after-tax dollars into a Roth IRA.

Lose weight

Nothing special about this goal. I’m targeting 35 pounds lost by the end of the year. I’ve had this one on my goal list for a while, so it’s time to finally knock this one off.

Write a journal entry a day

This is a new one for me. I wanted to do a 365 photo project, but I’d really like to do more writing…so a 365 writing project it is. I won’t be publishing these, but I’m really enjoying it so far (even though I’m only 3 days in).

2011 feels different from years past, so I have pretty high hopes for accomplishing these goals (as well as several other things).

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So how did I do? Well…

Goal: Get Healthy
Result: Failed – I totally bombed this one. A lot of changes happened in 2010 that distracted me from this goal. This WILL be happening in 2011.

Goal: Side Income to Livable Levels
Result: Success / Not Applicable – This originally came about because I wanted to leave me previous job and work for myself. I did end up working for myself anyway, but I didn’t get my side income to livable levels. Having said that, I did start a new job which negated this goal (and resulted in an even better outcome in a lot of ways). I still love the idea of running my own business and maybe it’ll happen when it’s time. I tried to force it this time and that wasn’t the right way to do it. In the meantime, everything is working out pretty awesomely.

Goal: See a Space Shuttle Launch (in person)
Result: Success – I hit a home run on this one. I watched the next to last launch of Atlantis in May (from Titusville) and then I won the lottery by being selected for the NASA Tweetup for Discovery’s final flight. While I didn’t see Discovery launch (yet – 2011 goal now), I did get an amazing experience at NASA including standing just a few hundred yards from Discovery on the launchpad.

Overall, I’m OK with my progress (all things considered). I’m disappointed in myself for not making progress on my “Get Healthy” goal, but it was a bit of a crazy year. I’m happy with my direction heading into 2011 so 2010 was definitely not a waste. While I may not have accomplished all of the goals I wanted, 2011 is looking to be the best year yet.

We have a group setup on Flickr where lots of people are sending Tweetup photos. If you’re curious about the things we saw, take a look here:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/sts133tweetup/pool/

If you want to see exactly what we saw, you get watch the Justin.tv stream of pretty much the whole tweetup right here (note – lots of videos here…not official NASA videos and lots of them are from the parties. I know the actual tweetup content is in here somewhere though):

http://www.justin.tv/nasatweetup/videos

That’s all for now. More to come in a couple of days.

We arrived around 3pm on Saturday and got checked in pretty fast. Our campsite was G11 which was just a quick trip down the road from the ranger station. We had one of the small sites – just a tent pad, fire ring, a picnic table, and a single parking spot. The tent went up pretty quickly, so we got small fire going early in the evening and just sat around the campsite. We ended up cooking some steaks and potatoes for dinner – the cooking part went fine, but we didn’t bring quite enough light for the picnic table. We had plenty of flashlights, but we didn’t think we’d need a big lantern…turns out, the potatoes & steak took longer than we expected and it gets dark early…so we basically ate in the dark. We stayed up pretty late (11:30-ish) and then turned in for the night. We decided to cook some eggs & bacon the following morning, walked a good bit of the Elkmont site, and then headed out. A few photos from the trip are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adambyram/sets/72157625235026618/

So what did I think? Well…

Proximity to other campers

I was surprised how close we were to other campers. Some of the areas seem to be spaced out a bit more, but the “G” section was pretty packed. If you’re wanting to get away from everything, Elkmont may not do it for you. I think I’d like it more with a camper so some of the sounds are muffled. In a tent, every foot step, car, motorcycle, kid’s bike, etc makes quite a bit of noise and you can’t really escape it. Section “G” also allows generators during the day, so quite a few sites had those going during the day.

Pay attention to the rules (i.e. keep food safe)

We didn’t have this problem, but some of our nearby campers did… The rules you agree to when you reserve a spot state that you’ll keep your food locked in your car at all times unless you’re physically with the food at the site. Some guys a couple of sites over from us didn’t do this and left their cooler our while they went for a motorcycle ride. Shortly after they left, the rangers came by and confiscated all of their food (including the cooler itself). On top of that, anyone caught breaking the rules is fined $75. So if you camp at Elkmont, read & follow by the rules…they are serious about them and they really do patrol frequently to verify compliance.

Jerks nearby

So being in close proximity to other campers isn’t bad normally – it’s a little noisier as I mentioned, but nothing too bad…unless you’re camping next to jerks. I don’t know what was up with the people that were right next to us at G9, but their freaking car alarm went on for minutes at a time FOUR times during the night. Not right next to each other either – the first time was around midnight and they seemed to happen nearly once an hour all the way up to 3am. At that point, my Dad went over to talk to them and one of the campers was out trying to quite the truck. I have no idea what was going on, but a truck alarm blaring at 3am about 100 ft from your head is not awesome. Another nearby camper told us the following morning that these people had the alarm go off EIGHT times the night before! If you have great campers nearby, this will be ok, but since you have no control over who camps next to you, you should be aware that you too could have a jerk camper during your relaxing camping experience.

Overall

It was a good trip and we’ll probably be back to Elkmont in the future. I didn’t really sleep at all due to cars going by (G11 is just across the Little River from the entrance road to the campground and cars sound pretty loud), some animal(s) around the campsite overnight (no idea what it was…but something was walking around outside for a while late in the night), and the freaking car alarm. The site was nice in general though and my Dad really enjoyed it. I think my ideal wilderness retreat would be to go to a secluded cabin with a great mountain view & an internet connection…but I can certainly deal with a regular camping trip every now and then.

I’m also going to start blogging more. I know I’ve said that before, but I mean it this time. I need to work on my writing and now I have more incentive than normal since I do a good bit of tech writing at work. I can’t promise the topics will always be interesting, but I have a lot of things I want to talk about. I have quite a few folders of ideas to post, but I have been holding them because I originally thought I’d have a different site for each topic, but I’ve decided against that. It’s easier to keep all of the content in one place and I’m more likely to write this way, so we’ll see how it goes. More to come in the near future…stay tuned.

• Retina display
• Better battery life
• Better camera

Retina

The display is stunning – it is crystal clear and the colors are beautiful. Most apps simply become more crisp (assuming they don’t use a lot of low-res images). I don’t think you’ll see a ton of difference in the way you use apps due to the display, but you’ll enjoy the experience much more and it’ll feel less like a computer screen. This is one of those things where the old technology got the job done just fine, but man, after using this display for a few days now, I can’t wait to see it come to iPad and to traditional computer monitors. Once you get used to retina, all other displays start looking really blurry.

Battery Life

It’s excellent. It still isn’t going to last nearly as long as the iPad, but it seems to last significantly longer than my 3GS did while performing the same tasks.

Camera

For still photography, the camera seems to be improved, but it’s significantly better at low light photography. This is partly due to the new sensor technology, but it’s also due to the inclusion of a small LED flash. Don’t get me wrong, the low light photos are terrible compared to a DSLR or even a mid- range Point & Shoot…but it’s a huge step up from the camera in the 3GS that was barely usable in lower light conditions. Daylight photos (particularly macro type shots) range from good to excellent. If you want proof, check out this shot by a friend of mine. I’d say that under optimal conditions, the iPhone 4’s still camera is very competitive with mid-range Point & Shoot cameras. As for video, it’s 720p in size, but don’t expect anything close to Bluray quality. I put a couple of videos on my Vimeo account…these are “worst case” shots – indoors with low light shooting a dark subject with some fast movement. Quality wise, the video function alone is right there with my Creative Vado…there is absolutely no reason to use a Vado, Flip, etc. if you have an iPhone 4. In fact, when you add on the software (iMovie or otherwise), the iPhone 4 blows those devices out of the water.

Overall Feel

Compared to my 3GS, the iPhone 4 feels better & worse. I love the new design – it’s more sleek and feels even more solid. The downside is I feel more paranoid that I’m going to drop it. With the 3GS, you could drop it and have a pretty good chance of only minor scratches or maybe a small crack in the plastic back. With the iPhone 4, you’re either going to damage the glass on the front or back (and the camera is integrated into that back glass as well) or you’re going to bang up the antennas (since they form the metal band around the outside). In theory, the glass is super strong and not easy to break, but something about it just feels a little more fragile. Speed wise, everything feels fast. If you’ve used an iPad, it’s pretty much the same. I really don’t notice a ton of speed increase over my 3GS for day to day activities – I do know it’s much more powerful though, so I’m sure future apps will widen this gap.

FaceTime

FaceTime is the video calling feature built-in to each iPhone 4. I tried it out with a friend from Twitter and it’s certainly a nifty feature. It works as easily as Apple advertises…call someone, touch a button, and boom – video call. The big gotcha (for now) is that both parties must have iPhone 4s AND be on a WiFi network. I’m not sure I’ll be using this feature all that much, but I also prefer e-mail/twitter/IM to phone calls anyway. I can see it being pretty popular for some people and I do see a few use cases for myself.

iBooks

iBooks is an app I use a ton on my iPad. I was hoping the retina display would make it more readable to me on the iPhone 4. Text & images looks absolutely fantastic – but at the end of the day, I just can’t read on such a tiny screen. It’s not that the font is too small – I can see it fine – I just can’t fit enough content on the screen for my tastes. I read mostly technical (or at least non-fiction books) though, so books with less structured content may be a bit better. Imagine reading the tiny bibles you used to find in hotels – that’s what it’s like reading on the iPhone 4…super crisp text, but a little bitty reading surface. I do like having the ability to look up something in iBooks in an emergency though – so I’ll keep it installed just in case.

Multitasking

A lot of people have been anxiously awaiting multitasking on iPhone. I’m not one of them. I would like a few apps to be able to update in the background (Twitter for example) and I’d like to have a live IM client, but that’s about it. I don’t use Skype or Pandora on the phone, but if I did, I’d be happy. For me, this is a nice feature, but the only real benefit I get is that it’s slightly faster to switch between applications. Maybe I’ll be wow’d with what people are able to do with this in the future, but for now, I just don’t see much benefit for the tasks I do today…but I was never the target of this feature in the first place.

Reception

You’ve probably heard about the reception issues with iPhone 4. Steve Jobs said they don’t exist, but if they did, it’s because you’re holding it the wrong way. Apple corporate said they exist on all phones and you should buy a case. Well, they definitely do exist and I’m holding my phone the same way I’ve held every Apple iPhone. I’m going to end up buying a case I’m sure, but I’m really disappointed in Apple over this one. If you hold the phone in your left hand, you’ll connect two of the antennas with your finger or palm. By doing this, your 5 bars of full signal will drop to “No Service” within 30 seconds or so unless you happen to be very close to a cell tower. At home, I can do this easily every time I try. In West Knoxville, I had a harder time getting the signal to drop…so it seems to be partially dependent on your proximity to cell towers. I have yet to have a call drop due to this, but I have had SMS messages and data downloads stop/fail due to it…so it isn’t just a display issue – it really is losing the signal. Apple says some type of fix is on the way and if that’s the case, then maybe this won’t be a problem much longer. I expected I would get better reception than my 3GS due to the larger exposed antenna, but so far, my 3GS had a more stable signal. Call quality is as good or better on the iPhone 4 though. I haven’t tried making a call from a noisy area yet, but all of the calls I’ve made have sounded very clear on my end and no complaints from those that I’ve called.

http://adambyram.tumblr.com

Today I resigned from my job at the small software startup.  I’m not going to go into the details as to why I left, but I’ll just say that I don’t regret joining the company, but I feel I may have regretted it if I stayed any longer due to various things (including some opportunities outside of the company).

I’ll be posting more about my future plans over at my company blog – http://www.cogitu.com/blog/ – so if you’re interested, be sure to check that out for more details (a post will be up by Monday at the latest).

Get healthy

I’ve learned a lot about healthier eating and exercise over the last year, but I’ve failed at putting it into practice for an extended period of time. I want to be healthier for quite a few good reasons and it’s time I step up and do it. For this goal, my criteria are that I must be able to sustain the lifestyle changes and my target weight is 175 (with a stretch goal of 150) by the end of the year. (I know weight isn’t the only thing that makes one “healthy”, but I’m going to use it as the measurable part of this goal anyway.)

Side income to livable levels

I already make money on the side of my day job, but it’s not much…certainly nowhere close to anything I can live off. For 2010, my goal is to find a sustainable way to bring in $2500/mo after taxes. This goal isn’t to make that much on the side each month this year, it’s to start doing it so I could support myself fully in 2011…a proof of concept essentially. If I can hit this amount, that works out to around $30K/yr which is all I need to live very comfortably at this point in my life.

See a Space Shuttle launch (in person)

I went to space camp and I love NASA (and space exploration in general), but I have yet to see a shuttle launch. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but I’ve never made the time. There are only 5 shuttle launches left (as of right now) and they all happen in 2010. I don’t care which launch I see, but I’m going to see one in person (hopefully from the VIP area so I can get a good view).