Ryan J. Allen » toys

Subwoofers

Ryan J. Allen — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 19:05:16 +0000

I just got one of my subwoofers back. It was on loan to someone, as I wasn’t using it. With it being returned I realized that I currently have three subwoofers. And I’m not talking the small subwoofer that comes with a pair of computer speakers (I have one of those, too). I’m talking about proper, stand-alone subwoofers.

I have a Polk Audio PSW10 10″, 100-watt subwoofer. This little subwoofer might be perfect for, say, a garage. I’ve had this sub for a while and it’s done its duty. It weighs 26 pounds.

My second subwoofer is an Infinity PS212. I haven’t used it yet, but I suspect it would go great in a living room. I have only great great things about this sub. The sheet says it can dip down to reproduce 25 Hz sound. It weighs 44.7 pounds.

My third subwoofer is a JBL L8400. This one has served faithfully in my home theatre for half a year now. This impressive little guy has a response starting at 22 Hz, and a 600-watt amplifier. It weighs an impressive 58 pounds.

Dream Machine

Ryan J. Allen — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:55:37 +0000

Here is a Dream Machine that actually looks promising. Nice work, Sony.

iPhone Finally Lives Up to its Name

Ryan J. Allen — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:28:44 +0000

This week marks two big events for Apple’s iPhone: the release of iPhone OS 3.0, and the release of the iPhone 3GS. While both are exciting in their own regards I think the iPhone OS 3.0 software is the more exciting of the two. With iPhone OS 3.0 Apple has finally helped iPhone live up to its name.

The two most important features of iPhone 3.0 with respect to being a good mobile phone are: MMS, and Internet tethering. MMS is the messaging with pictures, sounds, and videos. MMS has existed for years: my SE T616 had this in 2003; my Treo 650 had this in 2005; now, finally, iPhone has this in 2009. MMS will not be available to first generation iPhone owners, but will be available to iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS owners. I presume that MMS is not available to first generation iPhones due to the slow speeds that EDGE offers.

Internet tethering allows you to use your mobile phone as a data modem, often used with a computer. This feature predates MMS. In fact, I was using a Nokia 6360 (circa 2002) on the Rogers TDMA network as a dialup modem at 9600 baud. We are fortunate enough to now have very reasonable download speeds available over the wireless network, making tethering on the iPhone long overdue.

iPhone 3.0 resolves a number of other long-standing complaints of others, but these are less critical in my opinion. Cut, copy, and paste are now supported through iPhone. Notes are now synced when iPhone is synced. Landscape mode is supported in more apps (Mail, Messages, and Notes). There is now a voice memos application. And, finally, bluetooth audio is supported (iPhone 3G and 3GS only).

There are some new features that are quite cool. I think Spotlight search on the iPhone is a great addition. This allows you to search all of contacts, e-mail, apps, your calendar, and more from one location. I didn’t look into whether this is extensible with application plug-ins (for example, if you had a recipe management application could it install a search plug-in on iPhone?), but this would be a great and welcome feature.

On top of the features that are listed on the iPhone software update page there are many minor tweaks that make using the device much more comfortable. You can now share contacts (e-mail a .vcf card); the home button is more configurable; the recent calls menu is greatly improved, showing more information in the list and listing call times and durations(!); lists in the iPod application include more information; the interface for moving, deleting, and forwarding multiple messages in Mail and Messages is much nicer. All of this among other minor OS and application improvements.

And these features only touch what you as a user will see. The OS upgrade will also offer developers much greater possibilities than before, including dock-connector access, PAN access to nearby users, and in-app purchases. I dare not leave out the long-awaited push notifications–Apple’s answer to background applications.

In all, iPhone OS 3.0 is very exciting. iPhone 3GS is a nice bump forward in internal hardware, but its significance is eclipsed by the software update. iPhone OS 3.0 finally brings the iPhone to where all other phones have been for the past 5 years and makes it a seriously good option for those really looking to tie their life up in one device.

Backing Up Your Important Data

Ryan J. Allen — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 22:48:42 +0000

Prepare for a little bit of geek-talk.

I’ve been thinking a lot about backups lately. I have regular backups, but not of all of my data. What’s worse is that the data that isn’t regularly backed up is the data that would be the most difficult to replace.

Currently my only personal computer is my little white MacBook. My little white MacBook has a little 80 Gb hard disk in it–plenty for OS X and applications, not very much for data. As a consequence of this I bought a Western Digital My Book external drive to store my data.

My current external drive is a 500 Gb firewire drive, and it still has a little over 100 Gb of free space. I use Time Machine with this drive, which consumes 100-150 Gb of the space. Time Machine backs up the OS, my applications, some documents, and general day-to-day stuff. The external drive is also the primary (and only) source for my iPhoto and iTunes libraries. Because these data stores exist only on the external drive there is no backup of this. Furthermore, all other data that is only stored on this drive is not backed up; the majority of the remaining data is non-original and could be regenerated.

So I’ve been trying to think of a way to have a backup. My mind went to a mirrored RAID of two drives, preferably done in hardware, that would support a firewire connection for Time Machine. This is relatively costly, however. I thought about doing this myself with daisy-chained firewire drives, but this would end up being difficult to maintain.

I think I have decided to buy another external drive of 1 Tb in size that will be used for Time Machine backups only. I would have both my laptop hard drive and my current external hard drive backup with Time Machine to the new external hard drive. I would exclude the current external drive’s Time Machine backup folder so that I could retain the Time Machine data that I have, without making an additional copy of it. (No need to start backing up a backup.)

I think this will resolve my concerns for backing up my larger data stores (iPhoto library in particular). Any comments on what you do, or how this could be done better?

Zürich Apple Store

Ryan J. Allen — Mon, 25 May 2009 05:21:46 +0000

MK, the Brownman, and I deked into the Zürich Apple Store opening on Friday, enjoying the high energy and the free t-shirt. There’s a bit about the store on ifoAppleStore and TUAW.

Ryan Allen Endorses: BRIO Toy Trains

Ryan J. Allen — Sun, 03 May 2009 13:49:17 +0000

Most of my family on my mother’s side live in Nova Scotia–Halifax, to be exact. While I was born in Nova Scotia I grew up in Ontario, only visiting NS a few times when I was young. When I did visit it was, of course, lovely to see my family but I also always looked forward to playing with the BRIO toy train set at my grandmother’s.

BRIO makes high-quality wooden train sets that are suitable for young children. The majority of the line is not powered, leaving the trains to be pulled by children. This, in combination with the ease of constructing a set and the variety of pieces available make BRIO train sets an imagination heaven. It has been years–certainly more than a decade–since I have seen the set but I am sure that it is bigger in my mind than it really is.

To this day, seeing a BRIO set will bring a smile to my face. I hope that my children and yours will enjoy BRIO toy trains as much as I did. I can imagine it now…