Tag: myEasyLife

iPad Mini体验

入手iPad Mini大约一周了，简单说说体验。

我之前用过第三代的Kindle，大概那个时候我就觉得这个大小用一只手拿着看书是最爽的。那个时候Kindle不爽的一点是没有触摸屏，没法直接按着一个词儿查字典。但iPad的尺寸对于在地铁上站着单手使用来说实在太大了，也没法随便揣在衣兜里。于是有了Mini之后我就毫不犹豫的订了一个。

入手之后第一感觉就是重量很合适，单手双手拿着都很舒服。尤其舒服的是竖着拿着的时候两手打字，比iPhone爽多了。。像广告图片上这样一只手抓着两边是有点费劲的，大部分时候其实是用一只手捏着或者托着，或者两手握着打字。看起来外观比以前的iPad好看，主要应该是因为屏幕外的边缘部分更窄了。

然后是最被各种评测诟病的部分：屏幕。简单的说是会看到很多渲染得不太好看的字体。很多小字号的字在iPad2和iPhone上看起来没问题，在iPad Mini上就会显得发虚，我没有经常使用iPad Retina也还是很容易就注意到了，尤其是中文字。举几个例子：

  • 默认设置下的iMessage文字
  • Photo Stream里面的评论
  • Kindle看英文书的默认字体
  • 印象里就连刚启动的几个欢迎屏幕里面都有很明显发虚的字，如果选的是中文的话。

嗯那么是不是可以解决呢？系统设置的Accessibility里面把最小字号设成20pt可以解决大部分系统字体的问题比如iMessage的。大部分阅读类的程序也都有设置字号的功能，调大个两三级就没问题了，比如Kindle, Pocket, 各种Newsstand里面的杂志。但还是有少数地方没法调整，再说每个应用都得调大文字也挺麻烦的。只能说现在的大部分网页和应用都没有针对iPad Mini优化过视觉效果。相信假以时日一些比较精细的应用是会特别优化的，不过从另一方面来说iOS的开发者又多了一些工作量。。

总体来说iPad Mini还是很赞的，一番调整之后就可以用的很爽了。毕竟平时常用的应用也就那么十个八个的样子。尺寸和重量还是实实在在的优势。

哦还有一点是iPad Mini的Smart Cover恶评如潮，我看了一下就没敢买。

What a Week

上周知道纽约又要来飓风了，Sandy。经过去年Irene的洗礼，这次一开始真没觉得会怎么样。去年那个在NYC也就是下了一晚上大雨，倒了些树。于是上周末该去哪儿玩去哪儿玩，周五晚上攀岩，周六去打靶，周六晚上去超市还感觉挺正常的。到了周日开始刮风了待在家里有点无聊，才出去又买了些食物和水屯着。不过周日的时候超市的气氛已经有点和周六不一样了，很多人在排队。鉴于去年的时候纽约人民也是很紧张的把超市抢空，然后食物没用上都放坏掉。于是这次我也只买了一点东西。

周日晚上就开始刮风下雨了，在家里听着也不是特别恐怖，就是风很大。周一基本大家都不去公司在家上班，出门吃午饭发现我家周围的饭馆大多还都开着，只是风挺大的不太能打伞。但还是有穿着类似泳装的人在跑步……

好像比较严重的状况是从周一晚上开始的。地铁在周一晚上七点就全线停了。晚上八点多riki给我打了个电话，说他家停电了……上网一看新闻，说曼哈顿的电站爆了一个，于是下面半个曼哈顿岛整个停电了。各种靠海的房子被淹，地铁隧道灌水的消息也频频传来。周二开始就整个是灾区景象了。我家这儿倒是没什么大状况，就是断了两个白天的网。周围吃饭买东西的地方都照开不误。听说停电区域的人们纷纷走上街头找电源，找网络，借用各种公司邻居健身房的淋浴。。现代社会里没电还真是很难过。

这work from home的状况整整持续了一周。非常神奇的是位于曼哈顿downtown的数据中心一开始居然没挂，靠自己的发电机在维持。公司群发的邮件还贴了那个数据中心门口送燃料的卡车排着队的照片，说应该没问题。结果当天晚上那个数据中心就挂了……过了半天之后恢复了。各种base在纽约的网站纷纷挂掉。还好贵司还有别的数据中心……

本来约了周一晚上去听一个歌剧。xw的朋友的老公在里面唱和声。。后来他们从周一改期到周三，就是万圣节晚上。周三地铁还都没开，只有公交和出租。下午五六点给各种car service打电话完全没人接，不过运气很好的在门口打到一辆yellow cab。进城之后发现有些路爆堵。不过倒没有整个岛堵死，两侧的highway还是比较畅通的。打车绕了个弯然后走了几个block到Columbia Circle那边吃饭听歌剧。半夜11点打车回家，出租在岛西侧的highway一路往南走到断电的区域，看着河对岸灯火通明的新泽西和这边黑成一片的曼哈顿，感觉很奇怪。在车上看见一条微博说纽约的出租车司机都在唱“黄色潜水艇”，其实真被淹了的地方都没有yellow cab。。但这种在没有红绿灯没有街灯的地方开车是有点像在潜水。

到今天地铁已经恢复了大半，还没通的基本都是过河隧道的部分还有前两天没电的部分。曼哈顿岛上大部分地方也都来电了。比较悲剧的是郊区的状况。那些房倒屋塌的照片基本都是NYC边缘地区的，那些地方有的据说得一两周才能来电。这两天还有好多汽车加不到油的新闻。从我这儿进城还挺麻烦，要么得走个一公里去坐4/5/6绿线地铁，要么就得地铁转公交。希望周一的时候能恢复得多点儿。

其实这飓风对我影响最大的一点是在家上班比在公司还累，因为纽约办公室大部分人都没法工作了于是剩下还能上班的人就巨忙……

哦，还有这周收了n条iPhone上的Emergency Alert…

Migrate to Macbook Air

I got the new Air after back from Beijing. I didn’t make the move for 11” and got an 13” eventually. It is the same resolution (1440×900) as my old MBP 15”, so my wallpaper collection can still be used, lol.

Somehow I decided to do migration in the clean way, which means I didn’t use the OS X migration tool but manually reinstalled/copied almost everything. The steps are fewer than I thought:

  1. Install a few apps from Mac App Store.
  2. Install Dropbox and all documents/scripts/vim configurations can be considered done.
  3. Copy over some large folders via an external hard drive, including code repos, iTunes music, photos, etc.
  4. Install dozens of software not available from App Store. This is the time-consuming part. I noticed I still need bit torrent for a few softwares. And the developer tools took the most time (Xcode, Eclipse, etc).
  5. Install homebrew and a bunch of command line tools from there.
  6. Miscellaneous system configurations. As the new laptop comes with Mountain Lion, I did these configurations while exploring the new system.

Overall it was pretty fast. The SSD harddisk dramatically accelerated the process of installing softwares. And the network speed in US office is sweet.

I also picked up a few new tools in this transition. I used iTerm2 to replace TotalTerminal, tried PathFinder and decided not to use it, replaced Cocoa VIM with MacVim, started to use some apps in full screen mode. All in all the new environment is satisfying so far.

 

Considering to Get A 11” Air

Really attracted by this article http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3237-a-few-product-recommendations

Any suggestions? I think 11” is big enough for vim.. Will check it out in Apple Store.

————–

Checked the actual machines in an Apple store yesterday. The width of the screen is actually more than necessary at most times, so the height matters. 11” has 15% less height than 13” (768 vs. 900). With 14pt font, the size I’m used to, in maximized Terminal 11” can show 42 rows while 13” can show 49 rows.

Not sure if the further portability of 11” really matters to me, who just carries the laptop for commute and has been carrying 15” MBP for years. So probably I will go for 13” for this time.

Here is a reference link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_displays_by_pixel_density#Apple

It’s Summer

Went to Jamaica Bay in Saturday. It’s interesting that you jump onto a subway, after 30 minutes you’re at the beach. Surely it would be nicer if I use a car, because some places are still not very accessible by subway, for example the Wildlife Refuge I wanted to go at first. However the beach is close enough to the station.

The Rockaway beach is for surfing, so lots of people were surfing there. Waves are not strong when we were there, so most people were just playing with the surfing board for fun, not really “professional” surfing. That made us think maybe we can get a surfing board and play a bit.

Went to Whitney Museum today, for the “Fireflies on Water” special exhibition. We arrived there at 1pm and saw a long line at the gate… And today’s special exhibition tickets were sold out already. This museum opens at 11am. I was quite impressed by how popular it is. Before going I guess there wouldn’t be many people because most tourists go to MET and other famous museums. Well, seems I was wrong. Need to go to this place at an earlier time.

So we ended in MET for the afternoon. MET was also crowded but at least we could get tickets and enter in 5 minutes. After that we had Japanese BBQ at Gyu Kaku. This BBQ is pretty famous and really good, especially in happy hours. Beef tongue is the best I’ve ever had.

I switched to unlimited ride metro card a few weeks ago. It indeed help push me to go outside and visit the city. That’s the way to enjoy summer time. Maybe I should buy one for xw too.