Jordan Schelew

French Canadian keyboards. Nobody likes them and nobody wants them (except Quebec).

// July 6th, 2010 // No Comments » // Rants, Technology

All of the notebook computers at Future Shop (except Apple and Dell computers) have been shipping with French Canadian keyboards for about 2(+?) years now. They are annoying. They are restrictive. They cause typos ALL the time. Yet, nearly all of the big name manufacturers are still shipping them.

Why are they doing this to us?

Because it saves the manufacturers money. They figured out at some point that it was getting costly having to ship French Canadian keyboards to Quebec and US keyboards to the rest of Canada, so to save some cash and simplify shipping, they all started shipping with French Canadian keyboards – regardless of the destination.

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Comic Zeal for iPad: Detailed Review

// May 5th, 2010 // No Comments » // Apps, Reviews, Technology

From the first time I saw the Marvel app for iPad reviewed, I knew that reading comic books had never looked better or more intuitive on an electronic device. Reading on the iPhone screen is similar, but certainly too small. Reading on my laptop seemed to work well, but it was definitely uncomfortable trying to hold my laptop open like a book. Enter: the iPad.

The large and vibrant screen showcases the colours of the comic books beautifully, making it the perfect medium for this purpose. Reading with the Marvel app is simple and elegant – I love it. But it does have its drawbacks. I have a number of comic books in CBR and CBZ formats on my computer, from old classics to independent fan-created graphic novels, all of which could surely benefit from such a fantastic reading environment. I couldn’t do it with the Marvel or IDW (similar) applications because they are limited to purchases in their own in-app stores. So I went on the hunt. I found a free app called CloudReader and began using that, and while its reading experience is well done, the file/comic book navigation and cataloging is terrible. It’s a simple list with no covers, no title parsing, and no folders – not very useful if you have a number of comic books you wish to read and keep on the device. And thus, my search continued.

I looked for reviews and eventually came upon a Gizmodo review comparing Comic Zeal for iPad ($7.99) and Comic Reader Mobi ($15). Not only is Comic Reader Mobi more money than I’m willing to spend on a comic book reader, but their entire website is done in Flash. How clueless can you get?

I visited the Comic Zeal website and found a beautifully designed site that showcased their iPhone version of the app wonderfully. This must be it, I thought, who could make such a nicely designed site and iPhone app and fall short on the iPad version, probably the best physical device made for their market? And so I went to the iTunes app store and paid for and downloaded the latest release at the time – version 4.0.5.

Note: the review is now updated to reflect some great new changes in v4.0.13

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On The Ars Technica Review of Windows 7

// November 7th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Technology

I sat down on this nice and quiet Saturday, with the sun streaming through the trees (and my window), to take a read through my long list of unread articles in NetNewsWire. It was then I realized that I hadn’t had a chance, or thought, to read through my selected news feeds in many weeks! I missed the articles on Droid, Apple’s new hardware (although I had already read about them on Apple.com), the subsequently ‘fixed’ uproar over the Atom processor support in Snow Leopard, and perhaps most importantly, the launch of Windows 7.

I worked at Future Shop the AM of the Windows 7 launch, so although I didn’t miss the launch itself, I missed the long-form news reports on the topic, along with the always-excellent review from Ars Technica. So I sat down today to read through the many page review and quickly realized there were going to be many parallels between the reviewer, Peter Bright’s opinions, and my own. As with all reviews, there will also be things I disagree with.

Since my memory is not always the best and since I love summaries, I thought I would take the opportunity to include some of Peter’s writing here – the parts I find most interesting, whether it be sections I agree with wholeheartedly, or pieces that I disagree with.
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VMWare Fusion 3.0 and Parallels Desktop 5

// November 6th, 2009 // No Comments » // Technology

Long ago, when VMWare Fusion was first announced, Parallels Desktop was the only way of running Windows on a Mac (I think this was even before Boot Camp came along). VMWare was the sort-of goliath virtualization company, having long since been making Windows and Linux based virtualization solutions. I remember downloading the trial of Parallels and feeling annoyed that I had to do little tweaks to make things work properly and that they lacked support through their online forum. I reached out to the VMWare Fusion beta, which was free until final release, and found stability, simplicity and best of all, their engineers actually responded on their forum! I bookmarked that very link and decided right then and there – Fusion was my choice for Windows on the Mac.

Things have changed a lot since then. Microsoft released 7, finally a respectable Windows operating system, meaning that the cautious folks can finally upgrade from Windows XP. Vista and 7 have some excellent DirectX-based user interface (UI) animations that make working with the UI a pleasant experience, but of course virtualizing these features was a long-time in the making. The Parallels folks started responding to people in their forums and their downloadable application just started working right after download – without requiring tinkering with the settings. The lines between the two applications began to blur, both in terms of features and support.
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