Windows and Doors now in. Look great!
Posted by Jeffrey on Jan 5, 2009
When we started thinking about new windows and a front door the sun was still warm and the grass was still green. It seemed like a good idea to get everything done before the snow came so we might not repeat the drafty mornings we had the last few winters in the house.After a recommendation from a friend who had all the windows done in the house, we called the Brock Windows and the salesman came to do an initial estimate. Maybe he didn’t think we were serious because he gave us a piece of paper with a few numbers on it and then left quickly.
We got a few other quotes and got the salesman back and at this point, he sat down with us for about an hour and spent some time explaining the options and wrote up the contract. Brock was the most competitive and the windows they install (Northstar Windows) are really great now that they are installed. The problem wasn’t however with the windows but the door.
No fault of Brock’s but when I called to inquire about the install date, they said that the door wasn’t in yet and to call back in a few weeks. When I did finally get a date we booked it for the Monday following the week the door was supposed to arrive.
Monday rolls around and I called the office to see when the crew would show up that day and they said that the bad news was the door wasn’t in. but the windows would be installed. So the crew of 3 came in and put down groundcloths and went to work with saws and crowbars to get the old windows out. The windows came out quite quickly, but since this was now December, the temperature in the house dropped to near freezing. I was working in the home office that day, so if I didn’t have my portable heater, I would have been forced out to look for a warmer space!
So by around 3 the two windows were in but they said that they had to come back for the door and do the trim so they would do the outside aluminum capping at that point. I thought that this should be done sooner rather than later, but thought that it might just be a few days to get them back. It turned out that after a week went by I called the office to find out the status and the door still wasn’t in. I don ‘t know about you, but through rain and snow and wind I didn’t want the area between the window frame and the siding exposed any more than necessary.
The office must have pulled some strings because they booked the door install and trim for the end of that week! The door was installed and most of the trim was done and the crew left at around 7:30 that night. The resulting insulation looks great and the exterior details look clean and I know they had to do some creative thinking to get them to look good in this non-standard installation. The windows are also really warm and because they are triple-glazed, we notice its far quieter than the old panes!
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They are also really warm! |
I found the crew did good work, but was a little messy. Given that they were working in pretty cold (and sometimes snowy conditions) I cut them some slack but will now have to find a way to get some of the debris from the installation off my roof and out of my gutters.
Appliances anyone?
Posted by Jeffrey on Dec 13, 2008
As we are getting into assembling the pieces for the kitchen reno I started thinking about the big ticket items. Alot! Things like cabinets, appliances, countertops all seem like there are no alternatives to going out to the mainstream stores and just biting the bullet and ordering them up at full MSRP.But for those of you in the GTA, I found an interesting place that may be an alternative for appliances. (They also sell electronics and big screen tvs!) It’s called MTC and it is on the surface a repair depot for electronics, but they have moved into appliance sales.They sell refurbished appliances as well as electronics at pretty good markdowns. Like 30%! They stock Miele appliances, from ranges to dishwashers and some are “scratch and dent” but the ones I saw had barely perceptable scratches.
So I picked up a Miele dishwasher, which was really out of my price range at MSRP but was in my range at this store.
Now they are in Whitby but don’t let that scare you; they are really close to the highway and are friendly to boot. [Now the secret is out!]
Windows and Door. What no door?!
Posted by Jeffrey on Dec 12, 2008
Months ago we decided to investigate putting in new windows and a front door after we decided that living with the drafty existing windows and door was not going to be much fun if the winter would be anything like the last one. So I went out and got some quotes from various manufacturers including Pella (who were, not surprisingly the most expensive of the lot.) I also checked out Homestars for reviews of the various vendors and this really helped out with the decision.So as we were doing the windows and door on the front of the house, we went with operable triple glazed units (as the lower floor window was fixed. - Actually one of the vendors who came out to do an estimate told me that it wasn’t even a window, but just a pane of glass tilted up into place and fastened with wood stops!)
After what seemed a long time and a change of seasons, I called the vendor Brock Windows to find out what the schedule would be for the install. They mentioned that the windows were in but the door was still on order and to call back in a few weeks. OK, I thought, still not quite 8 weeks, so within the window for delivery.
I called again at the beginning of December and they said that the door would be in from the manufacturer at the end of the first week so they could come and do the whole install the following Monday. Sounded good so I booked it.
So the day arrived and the temperature fell to about -10 and snow was falling; not a great day to put in windows, but better late than never. But when I called the office to find out if they could tell me the status, they said “Good news/bad news. Take your pick.” You guessed it; the door was still not in. Ten weeks! It always seems that something is going on when we replace doors on this house.
But I wanted the windows in at least so I had the crew come in and put those in, which look great! The problem is that knowing they were going to have to come back and put in the door, they didn’t cap the outside so now I am left with some of the original frame for the window showing. They did foam around the window so there won’t (I hope) be any water coming in there, but still…
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Hmm. Not quite the look I was going for. |
I called yesterday and asked them to find out when the door would be coming and I guess they pulled some strings because the manufacturer said that it would be arriving so I booked the install for next week. We shall see!
Contractor visit
Posted by Jeffrey on Dec 4, 2008
I met the contractor this week and we discussed not only the construction work that has to get done, but also ways to cut back to reduce the cost of the boxes and doors. He had a few suggestions which were interesting and make some sense. Now he just has to go back, sharpen his pencil and see if we can get down to a figure that fits our budget.As far as the flooring goes, we are going to take up the old (original!) hardwood in the main floor as it was crudely patched during another owners bad 70s reno. I was out last week to a hardwood retailer to look at a selection of solid hardwood products and selected one that I think will look really good throughout the whole floor and into the kitchen. Since it will be in the kitchen I selected hickory, which is arguably the hardest North American species according to this chart. We are interested in avoiding if possible exotic woods that have to get shipped from far away.
Then we have to get coordinated with an installer to come in after the cabinets are gone and any rough construction is complete to take up the old floor, put down 3/8” plywood over the existing fir sub floor and then lay the new hardwood. Its going to look really good as I will rip out the existing cheap baseboards which again went in during the 70s and replace with the original-style deep baseboards.
Speaking of new, the windows for the front of the house are being installed this coming Monday and it will be a relief not only because they will look way better (and suit the house), but we won’t have a draft blowing over the bed during the night!
Money, money, money
Posted by Jeffrey on Dec 1, 2008
Yes, we got the news…The preliminary pricing came in higher than we were forecasting so now we have to look into what we can do to shave down some costs… I was expecting this as in my experience, the costs rarely come in at what you’ve budgeted; must be a universal law or something.
I am meeting with the contractor tomorrow to find out about his part of the work and figure out areas for savings, so hopefully we can maintain the basic layout and concept.
Stay tuned for more!
Lets hope the price is right
Posted by Jeffrey on Nov 13, 2008
Late last week we had a meeting with our designer on the kitchen reno and formalized the plan. She brought in a Richlieu catalog with all sorts of organization devices so we could go through it and pick the things that we thought would be useful. Its pretty seductive to look at all the “labour-saving” products, but as we are sure to find out, they really can inflate the price of the job!After the meeting we ran out to get a sense of what fixtures would be (sink, faucet). I had no idea that these things were pricier than rhinestones at an Elvis convention. (And just as flashy too!) We took a look at some tiles for the backsplash and got some pictures so we could get some direction from Carol. So far, the elevations show a recessed niche in the wall which would be highlighted with feature tiles and would be for oils, pepper grinder etc. The field tile would be simple and not too busy as the space is too small for a lot of detail.
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Backsplash tile v1.0. |
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or maybe this one? Backsplash tile v1.1. |
The next step is to get high level pricing on the boxes and doors so we can see if we are in the ballpark. Then we can estimate on the cost for the construction elements (electrical, structural, HVAC etc.). I am crossing my fingers!
Design and HP- Boosting sales in tough times
Posted by Jeffrey on Nov 6, 2008
In a recent Bloomberg article, HP is focusing on design to help it widen its lead over 2nd place Dell in terms of sales of computers. With an eye to Apple, it has started producing machines in a variety of colors and materials that challenge previous wisdom that computers are “boring beige boxes.”
Taking a page from one of its competitors is nothing new in the PC business but HP is aiming to deliver “lighter, more stylish laptops at prices that beat or match those of Dell. With little to separate the machines’ performance, design may be the tipping point.” As Roger Kay president of researcher Endpoint Technologies Associates Inc. in Wayland, Massachusetts explains, “They’re not charging a premium for design — they’re just doing great design.”
What is really interesting is the way HP is introducing design to its line-up. Since the company started to understand that design is a differentiator, they have made “cultural shifts” in order to foster this type of thinking within the ranks. In an early meeting with designers, PC chief Todd Bradley told employees that PCs should be an “object of desire and possession” and that designers had permission to explore form and function not just cut costs. “Not only did they have the permission to be creative and design beautiful products, it was a mandate,” said Bradley, 49. “We made design a very visible priority.”
The team even has a different physical environment in which to work reflecting the increased focus on design with frosted glass Hermann Miller partitions rather than the grey cubes housing workers in the rest of the company.
The team is challenged to think about all aspects of the value chain, not only the end product. For instance, the company is re-thinking its shipping process, slimming down the amount of packaging used not only to cut costs and get more units on a skid but using less polystyrene is better for the environment. In looking at the way colors and designs are laid down on the laptop cases the company switched to a process called imprinting which is used in car detailing and fuses the designs right onto the material. This has improved the yield of units coming off the assembly line to 90% from 60%. In fact HP is working with BestBuy to offer special edition notebooks to target groups such as students, gamers and women.
This focus on design is estimated in a recent Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. report to help boost sales 6% over its rivals in the coming year as customers in challenging times become more discerning in their PC purchases. Not one to be outdone, Dell has introduced new colors to its laptop line and is rumoured to be completely revamping its line-up within the year.
New shed… (why you ask?)
Posted by Jeffrey on Nov 3, 2008
Well because people kept running into it…as you can see from this post, I just last year spent a bunch of time replacing the old one which had the same problem.Its not like it is in the middle of the road or even really that close to it. It just seemed to be a magnet for car bumpers and the like.
I think people use our parking area as a turn around because this old shed got more and more dented up over this summer.
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…And I didn’t even paint a target on it. |
In fact our neighbor is doing a big reno on his house and seems like one of his contractors backed into it by mistake a few months ago. No real problem, because he left a note that it was his fault and a phone number so it just took a while to get things arranged so I could take down the old one and put up the new one.
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Taking it down took only about an hour. |
The new one was really easy to put together and I’d really recommend it to anyone looking for a 6×6 shed. I even put it together 99% by myself; the only time I needed my wife’s help was to put in the window on the last step which was good because it was pretty cold yesterday and I wanted to get inside!
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The new shed went together really well. (Pardon the makeshift nature of the sign.. ahem.) |
Now next task is to put up a more permanent barrier in front of it quick to protect it from anyone else. (The one that is there I put together pretty much in the dark from whatever I had on hand.)
Kitchen plans and priorities
Posted by Jeffrey on Oct 27, 2008
Late last week we had our second real meeting with our designer Carol and we got to see the plans she drew up based on the output of our first meeting. |
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Design at the early stage is fun. The budget prioritization comes later. |
One reason that a designer is a real solid addition to a renovation project is their perspective as an “impartial” outside observer (in addition to their skills in assembling trades, know how about the process, design sense… I could go on.) During that first meeting Carol was quite detailed in her approach to finding out how we use our current kitchen and what we’d like to see in an improved one especially what some of our priorities are. This really helped as I think when you live with a situation for a while you overlook some of the big moves you could undertake that would help out further down the line.
One thing I mentioned was currently the fridge sits almost right in front of the rear door, so even though we put in a full glass door (see this post for more on that!) the bulk of the appliance blocks out a fair amount of light from coming into the kitchen. Now normally this wouldn’t be too much of an issue, but given that our house is so narrow and close to our neighbours, we don’t have any side lighting. (We have a narrow window on the dining room, but after about 12:30pm the sun moves around the rear of the house and that area goes into shadow.) The predominant light source is the back of the house since it faces south.
But one of my top 3 frustrations with the current layout is that when all of us come in the back door it is a traffic nightmare with boots, coats, dogs, bags flying everywhere, especially if it is cold or raining out. But I understand that because of the size of the space adding more program to a “kitchen” would be even more of a challenge. But there are always tradeoffs in any type of design job; so rare are those optimum conditions where all the stars align and things work out perfectly. So how are we doing so far?
Carol brought over two sketches: one moved the sink to the extreme south end of the kitchen and moved the range to the opposite end of the counter run. The big move in this one was closing up the existing window (what?) and replacing it with two thinner ones on either side of the HVAC duct. Did I mention there is a duct which supplies the second floor right smack dab in the middle of the rear wall?
The second one moves the fridge pretty much diagonally opposite to where it is now and the sink moves to the west wall. Now it becomes interesting! We took this concept and tweaked it a bit on the weekend so that maybe if we can move that HVAC duct a foot or so to the right, we can have a larger window.
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Very rough sketch but you can see that the west wall is alot cleaner as the fridge is now tucked away behind the stub wall. |
We are now trying to figure out how to maximize the amount of counter run on the east wall by putting the microwave into the uppers and maybe putting the sink into the corner on a diagonal, but I am not convinced of the diagonal sink and if we did this we’d have to swap the range over to the other side and figure out how to duct the range hood.
Next stage when we see if all this fits is to get preliminary costing on a scheme. Never the fun part because it usually means really getting down to what is important and what is only a nice to have because like everything else, it will come down to priorities and tradeoffs.
Ever had a diagonal sink? Let me know your thoughts!
Starting at the beginning
Posted by Jeffrey on Oct 9, 2008
Those of you with a sharp memory will remember that when I did the basement reno, I neglected to document it until I was a few weeks in. Not to make that same mistake again, I decided to bring you all the details (at least as many as I care to put pixel to screen) in our upcoming kitchen renovation.Yes that’s right; I said kitchen renovation. The two words that strike fear into any man. Because there are issues with the kitchen. That’s right issues. In our case its a distinct lack of storage and organization on the surface. But of course it goes deeper than that and maybe over the next 6 months or so, we can start to get into how we address those issues.
But for now we’ve brought in a specialist; an Interior Designer who has done many kitchens. So after our first meeting and a long questionaire that we went over, she is putting together a plan to address our ‘wish list.’ I think that our list is so long we’d have to have a kitchen 10 times the size to fit it all in but I am hopeful she can prioritize what we need versus what we want. Tall order yes, but its still the beginning of the project!
Bill Buxton - Design Culture and Apple’s success
Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 15, 2008
I’ve always thought that Bill Buxton had a good view on what was essential in design and technology. Even way back when I saw him in 1996 or 1997 when he was at Alias Wavefront he caused me to think about how Design impacts how we interact with products on a daily basis.
Now having done innovation from the inside of a large corporation, I can’t agree with his view more. It sounds like he could be talking about my (or I bet 90%) of the organizations out there when he recalls stories from his experience. His view is that many companies still need to be convinced of the value of design and how design affects (and requires) co-ordination with all parts of the organization.
But this is not design (or “Design”) that is the equivalent to window dressing or chrome or garish menus, but really a holistic approach to approaching problems. One of the questions he answered at the conclusion of his talk revolved around how he would characterize design. In addition the aforementioned “way of thinking” he very emphatically stated that it was not traditional problem solving, but a way to facilitate a conversation. In fact he mentioned that design is probably the “most negative” profession out there as it required a continual progression from a blank sheet of paper (millions of possibilities) to exactly one, with all the rest being thrown out!
But seems to be redeeming about this process is the conversation and improvement it causes as the ideas are thrown out; each idea informs the next to make it even better than it could have been on its own. This however, requires that design is supported at the proper level in the corporation, which he noted was part of the success of Apple and part of the continuing lack of progress in the 90% of other organizations currently producing products.
During the early days of Industrial Design, designers such as Walter Teague, Harley Earl and Henry Dreyfuss brought something unique to large organizations; how to differentiate their products based on context. They also had a distinct advantage in the early days as they reported in to very high levels in the company, usually the President or CEO (partially because they were “expensive”) but also because they could bring something distinctive to products which were becoming quite similar in customer’s eyes.
Today most design firms report into levels below senior management (in large organizations) and at this point are “positioned to fail.” He went on to ask the audience several hard questions:
- Is Design an Executive level position at your company?
- If not how can you claim it’s important?
- If it isn’t what message are you delivering to your employees?
The key message was that firms have to stop paying lip service to the value of design and actually incorporate it into the strategic decisions of the company.
This lead to a quote from one of Buxton’s mentors, Alan Kay:
“It takes almost as much creativity to understand a good ida as it is to have it in the first place.”
Upon which Buxton added his corollary:
“It takes even more creativity to make an idea real as it is to have on in the first place,”
which I can wholly agree with given my experience in product development!
So where it really gets interesting is his assertion that you need a design culture, not just products to be successful in a chosen industry and he (of course) gives Apple as an example.
In 1993 when Apple’s stock price was declining, future head designer Jonathan Ives started at the company. Through the next two CEOs the stock price declined further (likely through no fault of Ives) until the Apple board brought Steve Jobs back to the company and the rest, as they say is history, with the introduction of the iMac and later the iconic iPod.
So what did Jobs change? Buxton just mentions that Jobs became the Chief Design Officer and promoted the value of design throughout the company. And the remarkable thing to keep in mind is that he did it with largely the same staff that was around during the previous leaders’ tenure. He really just gave the existing staff the tools they needed and the right support to be able to execute on those good ideas.
You may ask what about the Apple G4 cube and hockey puck mouse? Well design is not always about a straight path to success and those “failures” positioned the company to really hit the ball out of the park on their next endeavors. Which meant that the conversation (and risk tolerance for failure) had to exist in the company or they wouldn’t be able to come back and build successful, game-changing products after previous ones failed to catch on in the market. And it also suggests that corporate culture can change to support design if it is supported from the top and becomes a part of the organizations conversations to deliver contextual products customers crave.
Richard Florida interview - Who’s your City?
Posted by Jeffrey on Apr 9, 2008
I recently had a chance to see Richard Florida speak at the launch of his new book, “Who’s your City” hosted at the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto. He was ostensibly being interviewed by his old friend Meric Gertler, but he was able move the conversation fluidly from the question at hand to such topics as keeping talent in Atlantic Canada and even on the “Singles index.” But more on that in a moment….
He started out by mentioning that one of the working titles for the book was “Why Place Matters” but upon finishing the draft felt that the title of “Who’s your City” really captured the essence of the book better. Because as he noted, with increased global mobility of everything from goods and services to citizens, where you choose to set up shop and live out your life can be a very telling indicator of how successful you’ll be in life.
Common wisdom says that advanced in communication technology combined with advances in transportation technology means that the world would tend to become more decentralized as in “The world is Flat” by Thomas L. Friedman. Or basically that with a PC and broadband you would be able to work anywhere. But Florida said this is only about half of the explanation. These advances are not spread evenly throughout the world and as a result, would lead to clustering around certain centers.
As further evidence, this year (2008) more than half of the world’s population will live in cities and that in around 200 or so nations on earth there are only about 40 “Mega-regions” that really matter. These regions have less than 20% of the world’s population but produce more than two-thirds of the world’s output and 80% of the world’s innovation.
But what if you’re unlucky enough to have missed out on the opportunity to be born (or live) in one of these Mega-Regions? How can these areas like Pittsburg or Hamilton (his examples, not mine!) help to transform themselves? There are two main things to recognize:
- Urban policy transforms economic policy (not just social policy);
- People policies are the key to a vibrant economy (attracting Artists, musicians etc.)
The key to understanding this is to keep in mind that the manufacturing jobs that made these “blue-collar” areas great in and around the turn of the 20th century (with Union involvement and increasing wages) have largely disappeared in favour of service economy jobs which are by and large less lucrative. So these cities must fight a battle against a rapidly increasing vacuum, sucking prosperity out of these cities to more “attractive” Mega-Regions.
Another topic that has caused some debate is Florida’s assertion that regions exhibit their own personality and that certain people are drawn to these personalities. Among the five kinds of personalities are “extroverts” and those that are “open to experience.” Those that are open to experience tend to migrate and cluster where they can “identify” with the regional personality. The critical message in this discussion is that one needs to understand the regional profile (and make sure it matches yours at that time) or you won’t be happy with your choice (or lack of choice).
To switch gears Gertler asked Florida what drew him to Toronto (besides the great job opportunity)? His answer surprised more than a few audience members in that he asserted that Toronto is one of two great cities in North America! To further his point he noted that the city is on the upswing and he really sees that he has an ability to make an impact (and it certainly helped his case when he mentioned that the city was a hybrid entertainment/ creative centre, with a heart!)
When asked about the Singles Map, Florida seemed a bit exasperated stating that this is the only thing that the media in the US seems to want to talk about from the book, whereas in Canada, there was a more broad based debate on many aspects of the book. In fact if you look at the map it seems that if you are a single man, the eastern US (and particularly the north east) is the place where you would seem to do all right. His research leads to the conclusion that this clustering occurs even within the dating game, though not sure how this would translate to other segments.
When initially considering cities to relocate to Florida made a map on a napkin with the pros and cons listed and Washington, DC and Toronto rose to the top. He noted that he chose Washington because at the time he thought that he could have an impact and change the entire nation, based on his work. But then Bush got elected… twice, and he pretty much gave up that notion.
In an interesting twist, he asked aloud whether the cities we live in are somehow matched to our situation in life. Even thought it is a tradeoff between our jobs and our lifestyles we do make those calculations based on what we think will match our aspirations at a given point in life. And corporations should become more adept at realizing these choices as they search for talent to help them grow. He noted that Google has become extremely strategic about location and bases some of their decisions based on the “people factor” in the surrounding region.
He then mentioned that Jane Jacobs said Adam Smith had it wrong; cities and people drive development by creating new work and that now instead of government planners, market forces are increasingly responsible for our urban outcomes. Because in the end we have to be responsible for our choices, even if we don’t end up making the decision to move out of our current locations. He also mentioned that in his adopted city of Toronto, he wished its citizens would “stop whining about how bad the city was” and really start to lead to make the city truly great, because in his eyes it seems as if the best days are still in front.
Design Thinking - Process or Product?
Posted by Jeffrey on Feb 29, 2008
Last night I had the pleasure to attend a talk by David Smith, President of NSCAD (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design) at the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto. The topic was “Why business people needed to think more like designers” and drew a packed house which was quite an achievement on such a cold wintry night.After a brief introduction by Heather Fraser, David quickly went into his prepared notes. He started off by saying that this session was going to be more about him asking questions to the audience rather than telling the audience what he thought was the right answer, which aligned with his premise that “critical inquiry” was part of the hallmark of successful designers. I’ll get into this a bit further later.
One of his first questions to the audience was “What are the benefits of an Arts Education?” He proposed that a key attribute was being curious about how things worked and to then remain curious throughout life and not be satisfied with the status quo. He delved into this a bit deeper when he later asked the central question, ” Why do business people needed to think more like designers?” His answer came back to the ability to ask the right questions, not necessarily come up with the “Be-all and end-all” product. His rationale was that designers (and business people) who ask the right questions can come up with the right solution for this moment, but guaranteed at some time in the future that solution will not be the right one for all time.
After concluding the formal part of the talk, he took some questions from the audience. One of the first questions was around asking the right questions and this lead to a discussion of whether process was indeed more important than product as he submitted. (One group which really values process is the Government and we know how fast they move on things….)
While he admitted that the government does surround itself with process, process in this context is not the end goal. The key thing to remember is that while products may be right for today’s constraints and opportunities, as these constraints change, designers and business people have to be willing to go back and question the initial assumptions (in the process) to come up with a new “right answer” for the new constraints. He insisted that the Apple iPod of today may be the Microsoft Zune of tomorrow and given the fast rate of change (especially in technology) this may be something to consider.
But if indeed creativity and artistic intent are valuable skills in society why are they arguably not as highly valued as business and technical skills? It all comes down to (in his estimation) the education system and how imagination in children is eventually supplanted by the ability to determine “right and wrong” answers and to be authorative on subjects.
So how do we then encourage creativity in business people? It really can be learned (I am an example of this!) by never feeling so comforable that “you think you know what you know.” (Or the often heard refrain, “Been there, done that.”) One has to be willing to think be curious about how things work and question assumptions to come up with a “right” solution for the problem at that time.
Don’t go look at Custom Kitchens
Posted by Jeffrey on Feb 21, 2008
We made the mistake of going to look at a fantastic high-end custom kitchen store called DOM which sells Valcucine kitchens imported from Italy. The sample kitchens are all beautifully put together and everything fits perfectly. In fact, the way the Valcucine product goes together reminds me of an airplane: everything has a machined quality and uses just enough (not excessive) amounts of material to get a cohesive look.We ended up in the store by accident; we were down in a certain area of town that has funky cafes and galleries and wandered into the store just to quickly take a look. Well once you’re in, its hard to leave because its like being at the premier of a Hollywood movie. You can see the stars and it looks like you could reach out and shake their hand but you know that you’ll get in really big trouble if you do. Which means in this case that it seems perfectly logical to spend that amount on a kitchen, but if we do, we’ll end up having to do a whole bunch of other stuff to make sure that it all goes together properly.
Things like making sure all the walls are square (yeah, right) or the floor is level (ha!) or that all the appliances match the design (how much is that integrated double oven?) Because the way I see it, something this nice requires total committment to making it look as good as it does in the showroom. They even have one show kitchen in the store with a tempered acid-etched glass countertop!
But after getting home (and back to reality) we realized that in our pretty small house a kitchen this good would require us to upgrade everything else in the house, including furniture and other fixtures. (Just look at some of the pictures on the site to see what it looks like.) So really you have to commit to the whole package before you plunk down the chequebook.
MacBook Air- Form or Function
Posted by Jeffrey on Jan 21, 2008
Apple launched the MacBookAir to great fanfare in some circles with much celebration about the form factor and design of the device. The Steve-note certainly highlighted the sleekness of this device and to give weight to the argument, compared it to a Sony Vaio. Other sites have a more detailed comparison here.The real value I think is in the ‘Touch’ interface developed first for the iPhone and the iPod touch. The MBA has touch on the trackpad so you can resize photos, scroll, swipe, rotate, zoom and other motions to interface with the screen. But wouldn’t it be great if you had a screen you could do this on directly? So make the screen touch sensitive (like the iPhone) and all of a sudden you have the Apple tablet, with a better interface than the UMPC.
I have seen people who first encounter a PC try to either take the mouse and lift it off the table and point it at the screen, or often, put it directly on the screen and try to manipulate the icons directly. As seasoned users we may scoff at this behaviour but its not really as unsophisticated as it sounds.
If you think about it, this is an entirely natural way [See this fantastic presentation by Jeff Han about Multi-touch] of interacting with items, and the fact that we (Microsoft and Apple really) tend to describe the working surface of the PC as a “desktop” really makes folks believe that they can rearrange things to the same degree as in the physical world. Microsoft is looking at this with their surface initiative and you could even draw a comparison with Nintendo’s Wii; that interacting with something on a screen with some sort of “controller” that has no real relationship with the actual task is not intuitive.
So even though rumors of an Apple tablet have been squelched before for a variety of reasons, I think for them it is the next logical evolution of a mobile device. When users can’t go to the small form factor of an iPhone, with a great user interface they could be persuaded to give up lugging a heavy laptop around. And besides, it’s something that Microsoft/Intel tried (and weren’t too successful at) . And Apple has never been one to shy away from a challenge.
Update:
Tom Krazit from Cnet has also written about this today (Feb. 26th) in his blog article “Has Apple found the magic Touch?”
Apple TV installation- A Non-Apple acolyte’s perspective
Posted by Jeffrey on Mar 24, 2007
Forget all the comments about backwards operating systems (PCs) and elegant simple to use interfaces (Mac); I wanted to see for myself if this extremely well-hyped device could do all the stuff that it was supposedly able to do. Things such as levitate objects, create food (”Earl Grey tea hot”; the Enterprise PC had to be Mac-based, no?) and other feats of magic.Seriously this device had to live up to a lot of hype, not the least of which involved super-easy setup and use. I actually used Macs off and on over the years, from the Mac Classic back in 1991 to PowerMacs in the mid-90s to even a super-powered (at the time) G3 to do video editing and other tasks around 2000. I have also had a bunch of PCs as well (seems like everyone was using them.. and still is). My latest PC is about 5 years old and is in need of replacement, but now I am seriously thinking about going to a Mac. But that’s another story, for another post.
This is about my installation experience with the AppleTV box. When I heard that they were creating this product back in 2005 I thought that this would be a fantastic addition to a home entertainment system. I mean think of it; the ability to play all that stuff that is locked up on your computer without having to physically bring it down to wherever your TV was sitting seemed pretty attractive. I thought that they’d announce it at MacWorld in ‘06 but there was no mention of a product that people had started to call iTV. So still had to wait, and wait and wait.
So when it was announced along with the iPhone I thought that it would be a great opportunity to try finally get to try out something that would make this type of whole home “cross-platform” media experience a reality.
I confess that I was not quite as well informed about the requirements for the product as I thought. In fact (cue the inspirational music) I thought that I could just bring it home and hook it up to the flat panel in the basement with the many cables I have on hand from other devices/installations that I have put in over the past few years. Turns out that after I unboxed the unit, (kill the music), I realized that the only video connections were HDMI (not a chance) and Component. Crap; I didn’t have any of those cables on hand.
So it sat for a day uninstalled and unloved on the shelf on top of my Satelite box waiting for me to go out and get the component cable. Home depot to the rescue. So brought the cable back, hooked it all up to the flat panel and then tried to insert the power cable. Guess what? Due to some sort of manufacturing problem, the cable doesn’t properly seat in the unit. It just falls out. So I had to resort to good old painters tape to hold the cable to the unit so at least I could do the setup.
Don’t try this at home kids
After taping the cable temporarily, I looked in the box for the remote and nearly had to tear the damn box apart to get it out. This remote is so tiny that for sure it will get lost on the coffee table or eaten by a hungry animal out looking for snacks inbetween the cushions.
Finally getting the remote out allows you to choose the language, and pick the resolution. Weird but none of the higher res options work for this monitor, even though it does support higher resolutions. I’m going to to worry about that later….
The tricky part was trying to get it to find the iTunes client running on the network. I had this running but apparently there is an option in the Firewall section to share iTunes that has to be enabled or it won’t find the AppleTV box. (Good to know; I found this on the Apple site.)
But the box does find the network and I can put in the WEP key (slowly using the remote and picking each character one by one), so it does go out and find a short teaser version for Feature Films and TV. [Note that I am in Canada which sucks from an iTunes perspective as we are a third world country when it comes to getting video. The short answer is that we really have nothing, except some trailers and some music videos. Get with the picture Apple/Studios and let us get the content that we want!]
So finally got everything to synch after fooling around a bit with the menus and content looks surprisingly good. There still are some jagged edges and some blockiness in the blacks but in my opinion I only notice this because I am comparing it to higher resolution video. I really like the way I can access the video podcasts on this device to check out the previews for all the upcoming movies, so I can at least pretend that I know what’s going on and delude myself that I’ll actually have time to see them when they come out.
So overall, not a bad user experience for installing what could be a really complicated device. I think Apple has done a few things right: limit the number of options in setup (so as not to confuse the user); use wireless to synch content from the PC as well as connect to the iTunes service for the most up-to-date previews of shows and films (too bad we can’t see them here); made the user interface really simple with a few clicks of the (too small) remote.
I also have hooked up our Media Center PC to this flat panel and will try to get that back online in the next few days… but not really a fair comparison as the AppleTV is a purpose built unit and the MCPC is more of a PC with the TV client grafted on. But I think that the AppleTV unit looks waaaay better anyway.
Update: Last week I finally got the power cable to stay in the socket; basically by shoving it in waaay to hard for my comfort level. So now I am just waiting for Apple to sign more content in Canada…. (still waiting…)