Apple PR and The Verge 2.0

September 3, 2014
3 min read
Great report on Apple PR. A lot of things I’ve heard for the first time, most of them are not surprising, but often you just don’t think about them.
The big problem, in my opinion, is that tech journalists and bloggers try to look objective too much. I think you just can’t. You can try, but still you’ve got some opinions and thoughts on every subject, so I think you have to be true to yourself and your readers, they should understand where are you coming from. If you use Android phones all the time and then you decide to review an iPhone or iOS, I don’t think you could be objective, but that’s ok, you just have to explain to your readers/listeners/watchers where are you coming from and what should they expect out of the review.
Opening Daring Fireball, I expect to see mostly articles and links about Apple and probably somewhat skewed in favor of Apple. And that is neither good, nor bad. You just have to accept it.
Regarding Apple itself and its practices. I, personally, can’t blame them, if “journalist” is ready to suck up and believe whatever the company in question says, it’s his problem entirely.
There is also this practice to advertise your unwillingness to play by Apple’s rules, which is not good, in my opinion. Shitting company, not getting to this company’s events and then writing all over the web about that and how objective you are, isn’t probably a great idea. If you are not on good terms with the company, it doesn’t automatically mean you are objective.
The most interesting thing Apple has done, regarding PR, in my opinion, is its ability to engage non tech people (as some say “normals”). A lot of my friends, who don’t follow tech news and don’t care about new gadgets, apps or services, know that something will happen on 9/9. Many of them think, Apple will start selling iPhone 6, some know it will be only presented, but most are informed. They don’t know and don’t care, that today Samsung will present something (but they will). Samsung tries hard. In social networks, advertising all over the city, but they are mostly known, as this other phone you get when you don’t have money for an iPhone or in some cases “the iPhone from Samsung” (yes, I’ve heard that a lot).
 
In other news, The Verge became responsive. Even as people talk about the App economy and are in love with apps, I don’t think a website should have its own app. I didn’t download The Verge app (or an app from any other blog or magazine for that matter), because I either read their stuff in aggregators (mostly Flipboard), or in Pocket (where links from Twitter and other social networks end up). It’s not intuitive and convenient to open every news site and blog app to keep up with the news. It’s more intuitive to just open browser and go to some site. There is concern about those moments when you don’t have Internet connections, but I think they are rare and you can leave without the Verge for a moment, or just send page you need to Pocket. 

I have won a smartphone!

September 2, 2014
4 min read

Yesterday, after publishing the story, some personal stuff happened and got my mood lower than I thought it could possibly get. I was in a mall, and after that happened, I sat down, got my phone out of the pocket to check Twitter and there was a message from the LG community in Latvia. I had won LG G3.

That’s not the first time I’ve won something, but this is the most expensive thing. About a year ago in a similar contest I’ve won an Acer tablet. It was the most basic one for about 100$, but still, winning something is always a great experience. Before that I have won a printer, magazine subscription and some small things like tickets and CD’s. But winning the flagship phone is in another league.

The most fun thing was the reaction of friends, mostly asking, how do I manage to do that and comments like “enough is enough”. The contest was on Facebook, you had to write, what ould you like to get from the LG G Community. As I understand it’s a service for the LG G phone owners with some deals for products and services. My answer was premium subscription for Endomondo or Runkeeper. But in the end the answer didn’t matter, because it was random, which chose the winner out of 476 participants. Link to the video on Facebook.

The question now is do I keep it? I currently have HTC One (m7), I had it for a year. It’s a great phone. Design wise it’s still one of the best, even considering m8. Putting speakers in front is a genius idea. I started to listen to music and podcasts without the headphones plugged in at home more often. Two things I don’t like about it are camera and battery life. I’ve never had a camera in my life (my parents had, so I used theirs, but not too often), so all the photos I take are with my smartphone. Photos do look good on the smartphone screen, but on a bigger monitor they are quite a bit grainy. Battery life sucks. It lasts half a day at most with my use. Yes, I do use it a lot. Listening to the music or podcasts in the car, at work and at home. Twitter, Instagram – I use those services only on a smartphone. Messaging and so on, but still, half a day is unacceptable by any standard. Comparing LG G3 with my current phone I would most definitely use the LG phone, but there are other things to consider:

  • It’s big, at 5.5 inches it is in a phablet category, so I have to look at it in the store. Most reviewers say it’s ok, the screen goes almost edge to edge, so it’s much more a phone than Samsung Note.
  • This week a lot of phones will come out, including the new iPhone. Last year I had a similar experience. I’ve waited for an iPhone to come out and then decided to buy HTC One, mostly because of the screen size and resolution. This time with bigger screen iPhone and changes in iOS 8 (including most importantly custom keyboards and the ability of apps to talk to each other), buying iPhone makes much more sense. I love the feeling of iOS, but there are some great features of Android that the iPhone doesn’t offer.

I’ll get the new phone in a couple of weeks, so I have some time to think about it.

Meta post on posting

September 1, 2014
3 min read

A couple of months ago I had downloaded Lift app. Didn’t find it useful and after a short time I’ve removed it, never thinking it would prove itself useful anytime soon. But in that process I’ve registered and so every once in a while I’ve got an e-mail from Lift with some challenges. I’ve removed all of them until there was message with writing challenge. #500WED (500 Words Every Day). The idea is to write 500 words every single day for a month. Sounds like fun!

For a long time I wanted to pick up writing. I tried to blog, but after about a month I would leave it untouched for a long time. Recently I wrote a story in Medium (which was fun). I’m not very good at writing, but I try my best. English isn’t even my second language, more like the third, so it doesn’t help. Still, writing in English helps with learning the language.

I’m still not sure what I’ll write about. As I understand, there will be writing prompts for each day, but I’m not sure I’ll stick to them. (I didn’t my first day, so, yeah). But it could help with those days, when I won’t know what to write about. That, actually, was the biggest problem for me. I wanted to write, I just couldn’t find a subject, so this challenge will, hopefully, help with that. I will see if that’s the problem, or just my inability to write.

As I’m typing this, I realize – writing 500 words with no particular subject is no easy task.

Probable subjects for writing – some personal stuff, definitely technology, since it is the thing I’m most interested in. I won’t bother writing about diet and what you should eat, there is plenty to read on that subject and I’m not an expert of any kind. Also, what works for me, maybe won’t work for you. Running may be a subject. I feel like links with my comments will be the most common thing. Again, If (and it is a big if) I will stick with the challenge.

Another question is whether I’ll post everything. First I thought maybe writing something personal in Evernote or something similar and keeping it private. But then I realized, it would hurt my motivation and sooner rather than later I would stop writing (and nobody wants that to happen! Right?)

Everything I’ll write will be published in my blog. Another problem I will most definitely have – I’ve never published anything as soon as I wrote it. Most of the time I’ll let the post sit for a day or two, then rewrite some of it and only after that will I press Publish button. This time I intend to publish as soon as I finish writing. This article I write in Ginger. It checks grammar and style, so that would be a big help. I’ll see in the future, if it will stick. So the first post is done. Let the challenge begin!

My weight loss story on Medium

August 23, 2014
1 min read

It sucks to be fat. My weight loss story.

I’ve recently wrote a story about my weight loss. I’ve wanted to write about that for a long time and also there was this desire to try out Medium. Finally got some thoughts and here is a result. Medium text editor is beautiful, but I messed up title and sub-title first time I’ve wrote the story. 

Didn’t want make this post too long, so it is mostly about the diet. I’ve also bought Fitbit Flex the week I started the diet and it did help a lot, I’ve realized how little did I walk. Also by the end of the diet I’ve started jogging. It doesn’t help with weight-loss per se, but it does allow me to enjoy some not so healthy foods and still keep somewhat presentable form.

Running gear

June 10, 2014
3 min read

I guess, you probably can just go out and run, bet where is the fun? So during couple of months I’ve been running, I’ve acquired couple of things to help me with that activity. 

Shoes

This was the first thing I’ve bought after I’ve decided to pursue running. I’ve heard and read a lot about importance of good running shoes and couple of years ago I had problems with some shoes. I’ve got lucky, when I went to the store there was a sale on those Nike Pegasus running shoes. Beautiful and extremely comfortable. Friend of mine was saying how much better it was running at stadium and not on the roads. Finally I’ve decided to try it and didn’t notice ,much of a difference. Not being an expert, I totally give all the credit to my shoes. 

Clothes

Couple of Nike running T-shirts and shorts, also Nike, which one can call an overkill, but there was time when I had to motivate myself to go out and exercise and buying clothes was my first choice. It worked, knowing that I had these pretty expensive clothes motivated me to go running. Can’t say anything bad about them, comfortable even after more than an hour of running, I had some problems with regular T-shirts as they were not very comfortable for longer runs.

HRM + Watch

I’ve ordered Timex IronMan T5K214, just to have some more comparison information, I’ve used it only two times since it arrived, so can’t say much, but it’s fun to watch HR during the run.

Fitbit

It’s just always on me. When I first bought it, it didn’t change my activity. I’ve just tracked it and didn’t change anything in my lifestyle to improve the results. Only 2k steps a day? Meh, who cares? But then I’ve had a week with 6 days over 15k. After that I try to meet my goal every day, even if it means wandering around town with no reason.

Phone

I take phone with me on all the runs. I’ve wrote about how I choose what to run to. I have Pocket Casts and Spotify ready for my run. Also I track all my activities with RunKeeper. I’ve paid to become Elite user, mostly to support the service, but it does offer couple of useful features.

Headphones

In one week both my iPhone and HTC headphones died during the run. I’ve decided to buy something cheap, but at the store I saw Sennheiser CX 685 headphones on sale. They are designed for active use. It’s tricky to buy such headphones as you can’t try them beforehand and because of not traditional design I can imagine people having problems. Fortunately I didn’t have any, they fit perfectly and don’t drop out of ears. So far the longest run with them was hour and 5 minutes and they were fine during all the run.

Outdoor cinema in Riga

June 2, 2014
1 min read

As a part of Riga 2014 (Riga is European Capital of Culture) in June there have been made outdoor cinema in Riga center on Esplanade. We’ve been walking around town and got invited to watch the movie, for free! How can one refuse such an offer? It was the first such evening, they will show different movie every Saturday.

The opening was at 21:30 and we’ve came about half an hour earlier, all the seats were free, then, in about 20-30 minutes place was full and people were already standing, so it’s my advice to come earlier. It all started with some performances by accordionist and mimes.

Then mimes gave everyone popcorn (again, for free) and the movie started. This evening it was The Artist (2011). Movie wasn’t bad at all, but I loved the experience of watching it outdoors even more. This was the first time I’ve done something like that and I highly recommend to come and see themselves. 

Missing games

May 14, 2014
2 min read

I love doing “30 days” challenges. So far I’ve done 30 days without coffee, after which I don’t drink coffee in the morning. 30 days without bread, which helped me stick to the diet and lose weight, the other one I’ve done was writing something for 30 days, that was in the middle of 2012 and still I write something every single day, it could be blog post, but it also can be some note in OneNote, doesn’t matter, the point is to write. 

Since Monday, May 12, I’ve decided to do one more 30 days challenge, this time it’s “30 days without games”. Sunday before that I’ve removed all the games from my phone, tablet and PC. I mostly play casual games on my iPad (lately 2048 and Trial Frontiers) and couple of games on PC (the one I’ve played for about 11 years is PES – FIFA in the begging, but hen I’ve changed the camp – and couple of others, that change very often). 

Before this week, I didn’t even realize how much time is consumed by playing games. While I’m at home, about once an hour I think about playing couple of matches in PES, watching TV Show? It’s time to fire up some iPad game. I’ve actually started to pay more attention to TV shows and I’m getting more enjoyment out of it. 

It’s not even a week and I already see changes, I’m afraid to think how I’ll feel in a month. 

How I went from hating running to my first 10k

May 5, 2014
3 min read

I’ve been putting off writing this post for a week now, finally got to it!

For almost all of my life I was overweight and running was hard for me. I didn’t like doing things for the sake of it, like running, jumping etc., but I loved playing football, volley and other sports. At school we had to run some short distances every year, I had no problem doing that, but then there was 3600m. I couldn’t do it. Later, about 3 years ago, my weight peaked at 120kg, it was hard even thinking about running, I’ve tried once, ran about 500m and walked back home, I’ve bought a treadmill and was walking/running at home for 30 minutes couple times a week at best. Then I lost about 20kg and for 2-3 years my weight was at about 95 kilo mark. I tried running couple of times and could do 1-1.5k, but never loved doing it and there was no progress.

In the end of last year I started to gain weight, on 08.01.2014 it got to 103 kilos and so I’ve decided to lose some of it, in about a month I’ve lost 10 kilos and decided to start running. I’ve got Fitbit, Runkeeper, really nice Nike Pegasus running shoes and was ready to go! My first run was 2.28km with average pace of 7:02, it felt great and I could see, just by losing weight I could run more. This time I was motivated to run and, most importantly, I’ve enjoyed it. 

In another month I’ve lost additional 8 kilos and so my weight got to 85-86, progress with running was not big, but I could definitely see it and feel it. In exactly a month from my first run I’ve run 5.1km with an average pace of 6:21. It was the longest run in my whole life, the feeling was great!

Then I’ve got couple of colds, so I couldn’t run, but when I did, I’ve got the distance of about 6-7km. The week before my record I barely managed 6km and whole week didn’t have any physical activity.

When I started this particular run, I wished I could do 6km again and after about 3km I was pretty sure that was my limit for the day. After next 2km I was almost dying, but decided to try to beat my own record of 7km and so I continued to run and this “almost dying” feeling was there until 10km, it didn’t get any worse, it just was the same feeling. When I saw 10km on the screen I’ve jumped, I was very happy! It was unbelievable.

Was thinking how to end this story and the only thing I can say, is some cheesy thing, like “you are capable of anything, just go and try!”. But it really is true, you just have to believe you can do it.

Comparison videos

April 17, 2014
1 min read

Love comparison videos from thematic blogs. “Let’s see how they will handle Skype calls and the winner is Cortana!” Really? Makes sense, doesn’t it, since Microsoft owns Skype. Author could have tried making FaceTime call on all of the platforms and I think I could guess who the winner would be. 

And when asking for nearby restaurant, Google Now gave a result of one, that is 0.4 miles away, while the closest one from Cortana was 8.9 miles away, I’m not sure you can call it a tie. 

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Spotify’s biggest redesign ever brings long-awaited Collection view

April 9, 2014
1 min read

Spotify’s biggest redesign ever brings long-awaited Collection view

Unfortunately, without its famous yellow stars (and with the addition of a few prominent design cues), the app looks more than ever like a darker shade of chief competitor Rdio — but that might not be such a bad thing for Spotify.

I finally got the update and it messes up with the way I interact with an app. I’ve left Rdio because of all those features. I don’t need collections. I was syncing Starred playlist for offline listening on a phone and it was very easy to add a song to that playlist. Now I have to add it to my Collection and then to a playlist for sync? Not great at all.