Bank accounts and car leases

So, a tale of good service, and a story that has an undecided ending. 

 

We opened up bank accounts with Wells Fargo, in the Mountain View downtown. The process, while requiring a lot of processes, was painless and made effortless by the very gracious bank staff. Although it took 2 hours, we left the bank with debit cards and cheque books, ready to transact as locals.

 

On the car front, things are a little shakier. We rented a Chevrolet Suburban, probably the largest SUV I've ever seen. It's the vehicle on the right in the picture below, taken at a stop at the local Sunnyvale market.

 

I had arranged to purchase two Volvo's before we left South Africa, an XC60 and an S60. The pick up of the XC was flawless; its a great car, very comfortable and the handover was very efficiently done.

 

The S was a similar experience, until I parked it after driving it. As I got out of the car, I noticed scratches on the bumper, which I hadn't caused.

Then, after a closer inspection, I noticed scratches on the textile B pillar of the vehicle, which I again didn't cause.

The dealer has been informed, so lets see how they deal with it and rectify the situation.

 

As an aside, we've also had a lot of fun taking the children to park's, which are plentiful and very well equipped. The kids are loving them :-)

Moving to Silicon Valley, California!

So, if you're wondering why this blog has been a little quiet, its because my wife and I have been executing on a rather bold plan; a move to Silicon Valley!

 

Work starts tomorrow, Tuesday the 3rd of September. I hope to post more as I settle down and get into the swing of things.

Jawbone Up

I'm not much of a health or fitness nut. To be honest, I tend to be rather pedestrian about affairs of health, only really listening when my wife (quite correctly) points out I shouldn't have that next slice of pizza, or to avoid that dread macaroni & cheese (yum!). Combined with both a genetic and extrinsic love of all things sweet and dessert-like, and very low levels of self control when confronted with the possibility of Italian kisses (for those non SA-based, small balls of ice cream generally covered either in chocolate, caramel or both), a fatalistic combination indeed. What you can't measure, you can't control.

 

Enter the Jawbone Up. In a word, I now have visibility in my movement during the day, how I'm sleeping, and a series of reminders and hints that effectively force me to think about my food intake (note, I said think, not necessarily dictate), and to provide some data and insight. I can highly recommend it!

The last HTC phone that anyone will care about

HTC was a credible, solid device manufacturer that not only made great hardware, but paired it with its customisations of Android that in past years made Android a credible option for business users rather than a geeks wet dream. But it feels like someone sucked out all the energy and dynamism out of HTC, and threw it into Samsung. Now don't get me wrong; Samsung, while they make great hardware, make some god awful UI's and add (in my mind) almost no tangible value to the Android ecosystem rather than numbers.

 

But you have to face reality; HTC is haemorrhaging its senior executive team, and despite announcing it before the Samsung S4, has delivered the HTC One it to market in most markets later (sometimes by days, but often by weeks) than its feared rival. So is this the last great phone HTC makes ? I hope not, but fear it is.

 

Onto the merits of the phone!

 

• Its gorgeous to hold in your hand, and feels so well built and less plastic than its rival
• Those stereo speakers are truly amazing - no more tinny noise, thanks to those Beats-inspired additions
• HTC Sense 5 is truly a breath of fresh air, providing a great skin on top of Android

But I'm afraid its not all roses :-(

 

• The battery life is miserable - try running out of juice (properly) by 4PM in a business day
• The lack of a large Calendar widget is a dreadful omission, given that its been there in almost every prior device
• The design gives the hint that its not life-proof compared to its rivals

 

I like it; enough to make it my primary ? Lets run the battery a bit longer and see. But if it continues to be miserable, no.

Nokia Lumia 920 (aka the peak of irrelevance)

I tried a Nokia Lumia 920 this week. Its well built, solid (I could use it as a traditional weapon its so damn heavy), and the unit I played with was a deep red (and came with a luminous yellow inductive charging pad). Quite eye catching.

 

LIke the Blackberry Z10 I played with a while ago, the Windows Phone has some great features. Its super responsive, the graphics are gorgeous, and its quite quick to get going. But, it doesn't take long for the Microsoft-ism's to come shining through. All the built-in apps only integrate with Skydrive; sorry Google Drive and Dropbox users, you're stuck. And Google users, there's no social networking, search, browser, Earth or maps. There's nothing. Unlike the Blackberry, this platform has been around long enough that if those applications were ever going to make it over, they'd have been there by now. The fact that they're not, indicates that they probably won't ever be.

 

And thats sad, because this could have been a great contender.

 

Emphasis on could have been. Adios, Nokia & Microsoft. It was, respectively, a great (Nokia) and fucking goddamn awful (Microsoft) 20 years in the mobile industry; by hitching the two horses together, they'll just drown faster.

Samsung ATIV SmartPC Pro 700T

Microsoft Windows 8 has had mixed reviews; from the positive to the negative and everything in between. There is no question that Microsoft has taken a large bet on the mobile form factor, and Windows 8 is the company's response to the IOS-led mobile computing revolution underway. Most reviews have been lukewarm, and customer adoption has not been as rapid as hoped.

 

Is this because the software / hardware doesn't work, or is the idea flawed ? Having several Apple devices, I can confidently say that while they're amazing personal and consumer tools, they vary between amusing to downright useless as corporate devices. Three simple things that you can't universally do on an iOS device are;

1. Correctly view, edit and contribute to a multi-user / versioned document with tracked changes
2. Consistently view, present and edit a presentation
3. Export, import or share onto a memory stick any content

 

While these are simple (and you would think trivial) matters, in a business context they're effectively show stoppers. I bought and played with a Microsoft Surface RT (RT stands for ReTarded), which was silly. The hardware is great, the folding thin keyboard is truly innovative but the lack of an Intel processor makes the app and program ecosystem pretty thin. Enter the mouthful; the Samsung ATIV SmartPC Pro 700T (phew). A i5-based processor, 64GB SSD and built-in 3G modem makes this (large and heavy) tablet and associated keyboard cover quite an interesting beast. I've been using it for about a week now, and some initial thoughts;

• Windows 8 isn't sure if it wants to be a tablet, or general purpose computing platform (Metro, desktop, and the confusion and lack of cohesion between the two)
• Windows has a large and solid platform of software that allows you to do almost anything you need
• USB ports are damn handy, as is an open and standardised set of file systems
• 64GB is simply not enough storage; even with an additional 16GB MicroSD, disk space is so tight that you just barely make it
• Windows 8 tablets and devices play nicely with corporate workflow, systems and architecture principles

 

Windows 8 (and this hardware) are not the prettiest, slickest, fastest or most appealing combo; a MacBook Air or an iPad 4 from a design, weight and general aesthetic perspective kick these offerings into the stratosphere. But as a business tool ? I haven't powered my iPad on since I got this. 

 

For me, even though I'm going to get ridiculed for it, the Windows 8 tablet is a compelling story.

Bose QC3 headphones

Its very rare that you buy something that does exactly what its supposed to do, and does it so well that it blows all your expectations away. One such device is the Amazon Kindle; does what its supposed to do, and consistently. I'd like to add another to that (very short) list; the Bose QC3 headphones.

 

Yes, they are very expensive at $350. Yes, they only work when they're powered (i.e. the proprietary battery is charged). But oh yes, they are gorgeous and comfortable to wear (even for hours at a stretch). And oh yes, they sound amazingly neutral (which is rare these days). And oh yes, that battery lasts for ever (more than 16-18 hours). 

 

It comes in a beautiful hard case (which frankly doesn't look like it'll last very long if you don't care for it), an airline adapter (for those stupid airlines that don't have a standard headphone jack), a charger and a set of "world" adapters that will make the charger work just about anywhere. The only fiddly bit is the cable, which comes either as a standard wired cable, or as an Apple-compatible control set of buttons. On the plus side, its detachable, and on the minus side, they really should consider making these things wireless. Cables, while great for quality, really suck in real world use.

 

It really is surreal how the minute you put these on and switch the button (there is mercifully only one button on the whole thing), it sounds like all the air has been sucked out of the room and its eerily quiet. On the audio quality front, I can only reference these to the Klipsch Image X10i's in terms of quality and trueness to the recording; if anything, these are slightly bass heavier, but not distractingly so. Mid's and trebles are fairly treated, and overall quality is sublime. They don't get terrifically loud, but because of the design seem to focus the sound into your ears as opposed to bleeding out. And they're open backed, which means a much more neutral sound that doesn't eliminate external noises if they're loud enough.

 

Are they worth the price tag ? Audio quality and comfort are so subjective, its hard to comment without real-world comparisons. These are so good that comparisons are only for academic purposes, not necessity. it would be interesting to compare these with a pair of AKG 490NC's, which are roughly a third less. The Harmon equivalents that I have tried were so bass heavy (as were the Monster and Beats equivalents), whereas the AKG's are more supposed to be more neutral.

 

But these Bose; awesome!