Category: blog

iPhone is a life changing gadget

I started to use iPhone after moving to NYC. It has been 2 months. I want to say it really changed some part of life.

First, I rarely open my laptop at home now. Almost all casual tasks can be done on iPhone, with an as good or even better user experience. Email, twitter, IM, video call, search, browse web, ebooks, a little bit music sometimes… All well supported by iPhone. The only chance I need to open laptop is for playing some pirated movies, actually. Or serious works like reading a long doc, but that’s more of an office case.

Second, I’m even more closely bound to Internet now. I have been a heavy user of Smart Phone (if BlackBerry can count :/) for years. However it was in China and it was stupid BlackBerry and poor 2g network. The bandwidth and the fucking GFW limited my mobile digital life to an eunuch level. Now, welcome to Zion… Unfortunately, or fortunately, I still have 1.5 hours Internet-free time each weekday because of subway. But it’s definitely not iPhone-free. Kindle app and Podcaster are my company.

Last word: I used an Android phone in US for a few months. It’s not the same thing. User experience matters. It determines whether you want to stick to phone or open a laptop, though the difference is hard to be measured.

Between 2011 and 2012

I can still clearly remember that dinner with Diane and lxl during my first travel to NYC. It was a nice Japan restaurant, semi-basement, cozy and decent. We ordered fresh sea urchin, very delicious. Part of that table talk was about China and US, pros and cons, typical topic among Chinese ppl, too big that no one can convince others with different opinions. In the discussion I suddenly threw out a sentence: “Anyway, we should try hard to get the next generation born in US.” A short silence. It seems everyone agreed for a moment. No matter how much you love the country, how much you’re used to the food and the society, when decide for your own baby, it brings up an “objective” and “ultimate” choice.

The opportunity came fast in a very unexpected way. In Sep I got the news and the position. At the end of Sep I flied back to China, did the wedding ceremonies in my hometown and xw’s hometown, in a rush. Then flied back to Beijing. Got the visa. Sold everything, from game consoles to mattress, from tables to chairs. Finished not-so-pleasant bargaining with the subleaser b****. Sent bobo (my cat) to a friend of xw’s friend and hopefully I’ll bring her to US on my next travel. Lived in a friend’s place for the last 2 weeks before flying to US. Looked for apartments in NYC remotely by riki’s help. Everything happened so fast and I had been excited and anxious until we finally got a place in Brooklyn and bought some furnitures in.

I can’t say this is all for my 2011. Xw and I had a great travel to Japan. We held countless board game parties in our home, on the great big table :) And we went to IKEA so many times, and installed so many stuff in that place… However, moving oversea should be the second big item… second to getting married, lol!

For 2012, I resolve to do a good job and live a good life.

It is 2012 in China now and still 2011 in US. I’m going to push the “publish” button and play Skyrim for a while, will attend a cross-year party tonight. See you in 2012, if the world is still there!

More Furnitures, and Guests on Floor

Went to IKEA yesterday with xw, because there was an one day only sale! 1$ for 8 wood hangers… we got 4 packs, lol

And a metal TV stand, my big TV finally has some place other than floor. A nice armchair, which reminds me of my first visit to Beijing IKEA, I laid in a chair, so comfortable that I dropped my wallet there. A small metal cart for bathroom. A clothes rack in bedroom. And a big weaved box as a small table with storage. xw and I spent around 2 hours to setup all of them, before dinner. Really fast!

Then sly, fruitcc and a friend of theirs arrived. They came for a tour in NYC, will live in my place until new year. These guys just borrowed one sleep bag and one blanket from Jack, and slept on the living room floor. I have no idea how they spent last night.

Returned Apple TV

After using Apple TV for 3 days, I bricked it and returned it to Amazon…

Before buying it, I thought the main function of Apple TV was to play downloaded movies on computer. Then I found this was totally wrong. Apple TV is designed for buying/renting movies, either from iTunes or Netflix. Another selling point is its AirPlay integration with iOS devices. However videos from ppLive usually only have 480p quality or worse, so they look terrible on big TV. And AirPlay randomly broke after 1 hour use… It’s not that nice.

Then I jailbroke Apple TV, installed XBMC, hoping it could stream movies on my laptop. Experiences with XBMC were quite frustrating. It’s too like a developer toy, not a “product” at all. It was a pain to input anything, a huge pain to connect it with OSX system, and it crashed all the time. Eventually I got it work (broken intermittently though), but it still had so many drawbacks: poor subtitle support, poor seek function, and slow buffering.

I tried Netflix on Apple TV then, it worked pretty well and finally gave me a bit satisfaction after I got this thing. Because Apple TV started to support Netflix subtitle since 4.4, I tried to upgrade it from 4.3(jailbroken) to 4.4. Then it became a brick… Even restoring in iTunes couldn’t fix it. Considering the hours I wasted on it, I decided to return it. Amazon’s customer service is great. I got full refund very soon.

XBox 360 also has Netflix/YouTube and it worked pretty well. I don’t really see the reason to keep both Apple TV and XBox connected to TV. Microsoft is catching up pretty fast in the living room war, maybe already ahead of Apple?

Subway in NYC

I live in Brooklyn now. It costs me 30 minutes or so to commute by subway, one way.

NYC is the only city in US that ppl rely on subway heavily and seldom drive. Subway here is over 100 years old, much older than Beijing’s, but more comfortable in most means. It is crowded in rush hour, but not as much as Beijing or Japan, maybe because US people aren’t used to touch each other in cart. The scent is far more better. I remember its hardly breathable in Beijing’s subway cart, that’s why so many ppl drive there, even jammed.

NYC subway is old. So some parts are not clean, for example, rails are disgusting. However no one really cares that. Carts are not modern, some of them don’t show station names so you have to watch closely or listen to drive’s broadcast, if you can recognize their speaking. And ad posters here are usually covered by giraffe, such as mustache on every face or a single black tooth in a smiling mouth…

NYC subway is pretty expensive actually. It costs 2.25$ for a single ride. And weekly or monthly unlimited ride doesn’t give you too much discount if you are just a commuter (twice a day). Beijing subway is really really cheap, indeed.

Oh, and NYC subway doesn’t have cellphone signal at all. I’m drafting this post on my way home, but have to post it when I’m back to surface.