First thing I needed to do was acquire a microsim card for it. I had heard that AT&T doesn’t give them out and wouldn’t even sell them to non-customers. So I headed to an Apple Store and sure enough, they gave me one with no fuss and for free.

I then popped it into the iPad and proceeded to set it up. Another friend had recently bought a 3G iPad while travelling in the US and told me that he was able to activate the AT&T microsim using a Canadian credit card although it did only work with his American Express. I didn’t even try to use another type of card and proceeded to create an account with my AMEX. Unfortunately, and expectedly, AT&T’s signup form wouldn’t accept a Canadian address in the billing information section. I forced my billing info into the two address lines and used the zipcode/city/state of the Apple Store I was sitting outside of for the service area.

This whole part of the process is painful and seemingly unnecessary – I should be able to simply buy a $25 AT&T card and redeem it for access…why does it matter my service area?

I finally got the account setup and my credit card charged for the 2gb/$25 plan that was good for 30 days. I did a quick test with wifi off and was good to go on the iPad.

I had read online that the iPad data plan used a different APN for accessing data. A quick lookup in the Settings screen confirmed that it was using the APN of ‘broadband’.

Before leaving for Seattle, I had visited the unlockit.co.nz website to create a custom APN profile for the iPad APN and emailed it to myself. To do this you simply visit the site (you need to visit it with your iPhone for it to work), select ‘Custom APN’ and enter ‘broadband’ (no quotes) and leave the Carrier & other fields blank. You can create the profile right then (this would require that you’re already in the US and are on wifi) or you can email the profile to yourself. This is the preferred method as some people had issues applying the profile directly from the site (I didn’t). You may also want to create profiles for any other carriers you’ll be using on your travels at this time – you never know when a site like this could disappear.

I then took the microsim out of the iPad and put it into my software unlocked (via Ultrasn0w) iPhone 4. I then loaded up the APN profile from my email (you just tap on the attachment and hit the install button). You may need to reboot or simply switch into and back out of airplane mode to be able to connect. Then magically, I was connected to AT&T on my iPhone 4 with 2gbs of data. I had no voice or SMS but I didn’t care…I use Google Voice for US based SMS already.

I was able to use FaceTime as well, even though I didn’t technically have a voice line, I was assigned a voice number which showed up on the caller id to my friend that I called via FaceTime. Using the My3G app, I was also able to FaceTime over 3G while driving down the highway.

Once we got to our hotel, we discovered the the wifi was no longer free so I opted to use the MyWi app to share out my data to our iPads. At one point we were both using our iPads while having a FaceTime chat with a friend, all over my 3G data on my iPhone.

Keep in mind that the AT&T data plan for the iPad is a reoccurring charge that you have to cancel if you don’t want to be billed monthly for the service. You can do this from the iPad itself, over wifi, from back in Canada. I’ve got about a gig left after this weekend’s usage that doesn’t expire for a month.

As I mentioned earlier, the whole point of the iPad (and you could also say unlocked iPhones too) being carrier agnostic is so that you can use it while traveling…it shouldn’t be this many hoops to simply give a carrier your money to use their service. As far as I can tell, no carriers in North America have provisions for travelers from outside their country to use their data…of course they all want you to roam and pay through the nose for data from your home carrier. Consumers are smarter than that.

Happy travels!

I had a chance to talk about what this means to Canadians with Lisa Christiansen on CBC Radio One’s On the Coast this afternoon (thanks for capturing it Dave!):

CBC Radio One: Netflix coming soon to Canada

Canadian pricing and library availability wasn’t given in their press release but you can visit their site and sign up to be notified of when more details are announced.

Interestingly, Netflix.com, as well as their iPad app (pictured above), when visited from Canada both redirect users to Netflix.ca and the signup form.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Conservative) during the Paralympics

Michael Ignatieff (Liberal) outside Canada’s Northern House during the Winter Olympics

and Jack Layton (NDP) during the 2009 Pride Parade in the West End of Vancouver.

Gilles Duceppe has yet to appear in front of my lens.

We started our trip in Vancouver, ending up in Calgary just in time for the Stampede with stops along the way in Salmon Arm, Lake Louise, Emerald Lake and Banff among other points of interest.

Unfortunately, and ironically, for a good portion of our road trip, we were in the mountains and had no cell (voice or data) reception at all. This was fine with me as it gave me a chance to explore the phone itself (being relatively new to Nokia and it’s Symbian OS) as well as take in the landscape as a passenger for a change instead of being the driver.

The N97 Mini is a slick little smartphone in a candybar style form factor that is smaller (although slightly thicker) than my iPhone 3GS. It’s been out for about six months in the US so there are plenty of reviews around. I thought I’d focus on a few things that interested me about the phone.

The Camera
With an onboard 5 megapixel camera, with autofocus and LED flash, it’s pretty capable and similar to the iPhone 4. Here’s a number of photos I took while travelling around in the RV:

I really liked the depth of field possible with this camera:

I really liked the quality of the images taken with the camera although I found it a little sluggish to use but fairly consistant to an average point and shoot camera which it could easily replace. I found the flash to be pretty decent and to work slightly better than the iPhone 4 which always seemed to suffer for ‘white eyes’ when I used it briefly.

It is also capable of shooting video (with the flash working as an always on light), although only in standard definition. It also has a front facing camera but it’s very low resolution. I never had a chance to try out the video calling features but hope to in the coming weeks while I still have the loaner phone.

Navigation with Ovi Maps
Nokia also includes built in navigation software that is pretty slick.

Three features really stood out about it beyond the standard functions you’d find in a Garmin or TomTom unit:

1. You can choose and download your maps to the device using desktop software so you don’t need a network connection to use it (especially useful if in a foreign country without data)
2. Using the Ovi Voice app, you can customize a large portion of the navigation system using your own (or anyones) voice. One of the tasks we were given on the trip was to customize the RV’s phone with our own voices so we had a lot of fun with it as it asks you to record over 50 different phrases and words that it integrates into the navigation…if the RV gets lost along the way, I think they can blame us for having too much fun with the feature.
3. map updates are free for the life of your phone

Another nice touch is that the N97 Mini comes with a window suction cup mount in the box which makes it even easier to use as an in-car nav system and speakerphone.

Build your own Nokia apps without coding
Nokia recently announced a web based app builder for it’s Ovi Store. Basically it allows you to make a self contained app that pulls in any rss feed you want…so I made one for this site:

It’s pretty basic but it worked pretty well and took all of 5 minutes to create an app, followed by a 24 hour approval process before showing up on the store.

A few other Likes/Dislikes
I liked:

• great form factor that is very comfortable in hand and slips into a jeans pocket easily with possibly the best flipout keyboard I’ve ever used on a smartphone…small enough to be hidden well, comfortable enough that I might actually type on it…also has a satisfying click sound when folding away the keyboard
• Nokia’s app store (erm, Ovi Store) has a surprisingly deep amount of apps, games and themes – many things that on Android require rooting or jailbraking on the iPhone – although I haven’t had that much time to fully explore their usefulness
• true multitasking by simply press’n'hold the ‘wonky button’ (Tom’s British, you know) method for closing running apps
• decent battery life…although we were using these phones constantly, they managed to last about a day with heavy use

I didn’t like:

• the Symbian OS feels dated and slow compared to Android/iOS…truly feels like the Linux of the mobile world…fine if you’re into command lines but not so much if you’re into a snappy GUI
• the phone got very hot while charging or using as a wifi hotspot (or both as we usually used it on the RV), thanks to the metal back plate
• some of the apps were pretty pricey…Gravity, seemingly the best (if not only) Twitter client for Nokia was $10
• the video mode suffered from an auto exposure strobing effect that I found annoying…I didn’t find an option to lock it in place, just switch it between a few presets
• constantly being prompted to ‘go online’ or being told that what I’m about to do would incur data charges or simply being offline & having to press a button or 3 to get an update…no matter what settings I changed, I couldn’t make it stop or stay online. I just wanted to be always online like I can with Android or iPhone. Perhaps this is a holdover from the past when data plans didn’t come in 6gb blocks for less than a mortgage payment

It was a lot of fun to spend time in the RV with other mobile geeks, learning about the phone while travelling around. Tom, our host, mixed things up on a daily basis by giving us challenges to perform using the phone…including dropping us off in an empty parking lot in downtown Calgary. It was early in the morning after a late night at the Stampede then they drove away leaving us with some coordinates to use with Ovi Maps to find our way to breakfast. Fortunately it was only a few blocks to walk but a solid and fun challenge.

I made a couple of timelapse movies during the trip…here’s day one where we travel from Vancouver to Salmon Arm with a brief stop at the Othello Tunnels:

Heading Home
The RV dropped us off at the airport in Calgary and was continuing on out East with a fresh batch of mobile geeks they’d pick up along the way.

While waiting to fly home back to Vancouver, we were entertained at our gate, Stampede style (captured by the N97 Mini), much to Daniel’s chagrin:

All the photos (many taken with the N97 Mini) I took on the trip can be found in my Flickr set.

Huge thanks to my hosts, Tom Hall and Donna Suffling with WOMWorld/Nokia, Chris our awesome RV driver, and my travelmates: Michael, April, and Daniel.

You should watch the design video if you haven’t already seen it…it’s quite the update that I of course am looking forward to getting.

Unfortunately, as of this writing, we still don’t know when the new model will be available for Canadians.

It comes out in the US (and a few other countries) on June 24 with 18 more countries by the end of July and to everyone by the end of September. Most people are expecting this means Canada will get it in July…but there hasn’t been anything specific that says or implies this.(Canada will get it in July – thanks Allen!) All the Canadian carriers have updated their websites with few details other than ‘coming soon’ or promises of more information in the ‘coming weeks’.

Considering this is the third model available in Canada, third year in a row, which is now supported and sold by at least 3 major cellular carriers, I’m left wondering if it’s going to be an upgrade nightmare like it has been in the past.

I know Apple controls the marketing and distribution very tightly so my belief is that the carriers really don’t know (or can’t say) anything until the last moment. AT&T has already begun notifying it’s customers via a text message that lets them know how much it will cost to upgrade to the newest model.

This is smart. It lets each customer know exactly, in advance, if they are eligible to upgrade and how much it will cost – including any additional fees. This isn’t a randomly received text that looks like a marketing pitch, the customer can request a confirmation via SMS by dialing a number and they’ll get a response immediately.

I just hope the Canadian carriers are paying attention and don’t let us down a third time.

My 3GS upgrade process was very frustrating thanks to conflicting account information (Rogers’ system said I was eligible for an upgrade when I called in but the dealer computer system said I wasn’t when I tried to pick up the device) that took many hours of wasted time to resolve followed by a similar process when my wife wanted to upgrade – both situations required intervention at a higher level with help from Rogers social media team whom I engaged via Twitter to get resolution. They were very helpful but it shouldn’t have had to get to that point…and I know I’m not the only one as many friends encountered the same situation and had to spend time wading through the system.

I’m also left wondering what will happen to the data plans in Canada. AT&T has been changing around their offerings (lowering the included allotment for minimal decrease in price). Will the Canadian providers do the same now that we could start chewing through those 6gb plans now that our phones can record bandwidth chomping HD video with a one click button to uploads to YouTube?

I guess we’ll see in the ‘coming weeks’.

Update (June 15, 2010): Looks like something I was hoping for (2nd last paragraph) has happened…Today, Apple updated the Canadian Online iPhone Store (and presumably other countries) to indicate that they will be selling fully unlocked iPhones if you order them from Apple directly:

Of course, these unlocked phones will come at a premium but for those that are contract adverse, travel internationally frequently or just want freedom to move between carriers this is very welcome news. No longer will the cat and mouse game for unlockers matter to people that buy their iPhones this way.

Thanks to a recent car accident, I didn’t take many photos but instead spent a couple of days in sessions, visiting with old friends and, as usually happens at Northern Voice, met a bunch of new ones. Strangely, the conference has gotten so big that I actually saw some friends across the room but never had a chance to say hi since the room was so freaking big.

Like previous years, there was a PhotoCamp session and I gave a presentation covering how I make timelapse videos with a still camera. My presentation was loosely based on a post I did a little while ago and was frankly surprised at the positive reception the presentation got. The post covers off, in greater detail, the steps to combine still photos into an image sequence so I won’t bother posting my slides. I showed a number of videos to help illustrate the result including this one made from over 2200 still photos as kind of an end run around the fact that I wasn’t accredited to shoot video, just stills at the Paralympic Games:

On the second day of the conference, I was part of the panel talking about Our Olympic Experience which covered the social media outcomes from the games. Also on the panel was Andrew Lavigne talking about With Glowing Hearts, the feature length documentary he’s working on about the impacts the olympic games have on the local community. He shot a ton of footage before, during and after the games…including a few bits with me. Andrew talked about the film and showed the latest cut of the demo reel for it. They are currently looking for distribution options to help complete the editing of the film.

You can view my slide deck (PDF|35mb), watch one of the videos by Scales & kk from the Beijing Olympics that inspired my Olympic adventures:

(this one is also good) and watch my Olympic Highlight reel:

all of which I showed during the panel.

Once again I had a great time…even if I was heavily medicated during most of it thanks to my back injury. I was also able to give both presentations via my iPad and the VGA cable which worked great.

All the sessions were videotaped so once they are packaged up, I’ll update this post with any relevant links or embeds.

Update: Stephen Hui has some photos up on the Georgia Straight’s site that he took at the conference. I finally got to meet Stephen in person and he also spoke about his Olympic experiences alongside Andrew, kk, Scales and myself.

My decision to drive across the line to get one was further justified (to me) by the fact that Apple then had to delay the international release of the iPad over a month longer than originally planned (pushing it out to almost 2 months from US launch to Canadian availability). This delay, combined with my demo of the device, prompted a number of friends and coworkers to make their own track to Seattle to get their own units.

I have to say, after having it for a number of weeks now, the device keeps surprising me. For starters, the battery life has been amazing. Apple suggests that it lasts for about 10 hours on a charge. I’ve heard of people getting better than 12 hours of life out of the battery. Personally, I’ve gone for 3-4 days of heavy usage before having to plug it in. I never do stupid battery tests (playing a video loop until the battery dies for example) with any of my gear as they aren’t reflective of my actual usage. I can honestly say that the battery performs better than expected and that is awesome for a device like this.

Of course, since the iPad isn’t currently available in Canada, I get asked about it all the time. It’s been fun to have people come up to me at Starbucks for example and say “Is that THE iPad?”. Pretty much everyone has been impressed by seeing one in person, including many naysayers that start off their questioning with “so is it really just a big iPhone?”. It’s also been interesting seeing people that don’t have an iPhone or even a Mac play with it and intuitively figure out how it works without any prompting from me.

So here’s a few app highlights of why it’s outperformed my expectations:

The Photos app, as expected, is a fantastic way to view photos synced from my laptop. It can support thousands of photos and you can scroll through them REALLY fast.

I particularly like the option at the lockscreen to enable the Photoframe mode which is a nice touch for when it’s just sitting there or while charging:

Like Photos, the Movies app is equalling compelling to view movies…I’ve loaded up a bunch of my portfolio videos along with a number of feature films and combined with the crazy battery life, it’s truly a great media player.

I’ve collected a few books to read over the next little while and love that the iBooks app supports ePub formatted books. Combined with the opensource Calibre app (cross platform) conversion tool, you can pretty much put anything text based into the iBooks app. It’s also a nice touch that the entire Amazon Kindle library of books is available via the free Kindle app that has been updated with iPad support.

While considering the purchase of a magazine in a grocery store, I realized that this could be better read on the iPad. A quick check of the Zinio app and for about the price of two issues of a magazine (in this case Shutterbug), I could get a 12 issue subscription. This was a no-brainer. The iPad version includes a number of benefits over the printed version including text transcripts, in-app url viewing (all the ads have clickable links to product pages) and fast navigation through the magazine. I also get an email when the next issue is available.

GoodReader is another ‘reading’ app that allows you to view any PDF document along with a number of other supported file types. It also allows you to create a webserver on the iPad to allow you to wirelessly share files between your iPad, your computer and even other iPads without syncing. I currently have a pile of manuals and documents stored in GoodReader that is incredibly handy. Pretty slick for a $0.99 app.

The Google Maps app is blazingly fast and truly excels at showing the power of the iPad off. Despite not having built in GPS, I’ve found it worked incredibly well at locating me via wifi triangulation in a number of different locations around the province. It truly feels like something out of Minority Report when your are pinching and zooming such a large screen around. Streetview even works amazingly well.

At this point, I’ve got over 4 screens of iPad specific apps. Every day, more apps come up on the App Store and impress me. I can’t get into all of them in this post but will do future posts on some of the more impressive ones.

Gaming on the iPad
I have a bunch of games on the iPhone and have been really impressed with the quality of the iPad games that have been released that really take advantage of the iPad’s big screen. In particular, Scrabble has blown me away with some innovative game play options:

Basically, the party mode supports the notion that players have an iPhone/Touch. They download a free ‘Tile Rack’ app (currently only available on the US App Store) that lets players using their personal devices as view screens of their own tiles. You can arrange your tiles on your iPhone then when it’s your turn, you simply flick them onto the iPad’s game board and place them. You can even flip the iPad’s board orientation around to face you if desired.

Other games like 10 Pin Shuffle feel like games you’d see on a Nintendo Wii (or better) with fast gameplay and beautiful graphics.

Too bad it seems unlikely that Nintendo would ever port any games to the iPad…Zelda or Mario Kart would be amazing on a platform like this.

You’ll want the Apple Case (for now at least)
When I picked up my iPad, the Apple Store in Seattle had a wall of case options. I had already heard mixed reviews about the Apple branded one:

but opted to get it anyway since it was the only one that offered a cover over the screen along with a simple, yet innovative integrated stand that would work in either orientation as well as comfortable angle for typing on a lap or table surface:

Simply tucking the cover into the little flap on the backside quickly transforms the case into a sturdy stand. The only thing I don’t like about this case is the fact that it seems to pick up dirt/lint like crazy. Unavoidable I guess but it’s a pain to clean it constantly. Apparently this case has been wildly popular with it being sold out in all the Apple Stores and it has been spotted on ebay for more than twice the list price of $39.

Some things I don’t like or annoyed me

• Like most people with an iPhone, the iPad could really benefit from over the air syncing. It would be great to be able to add some new movies on the fly without having to sync. I already have Mobile Me which works great but doesn’t allow me to add any kind of media over wifi sync.
• I wish the VGA adaptor supported true video out…right now only a handful of apps support video out – I would have loved to been able to make a video demo of all the apps via the video out but it’s locked down unnecessarily
• I keep finding myself reaching for the home button on the wrong side of the device since it’s orientation is always different depending on use. Only way around this would be a gesture system for getting home or putting a home button on all four sides of the bezel (not likely)

Like teenage vampires, the iPad apparently doesn’t like direct sunlight:

Using the iPad normally results in it never getting warm (unlike my iPhone or laptop)…it’s always cool. But take it outside and it starts to get warm when in direct sunlight and eventually will shut down after about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes. I’m not planning on taking it to the beach but it’s kind of a disappointment.

What I’m looking forward to
I soon hope to get my hands on the Camera Connector as it should open up some interesting options for a much more portable photo upload tool with its support for RAW images, selective uploads and video support. It also sounds like the usb dongle that is included supports things other than photo downloads from cameras so it will be interesting to see what apps take advantage of this option.

Considering the iPad has only been out for a few weeks with the development kit only being in the hands of developers for little more than a month, the potential for this device is still largely untapped. It truly is a game changer in my opinion and not just a ‘big iPhone’.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the 3G enabled iPad is released as well…I’m still not convinced the mobile carriers will offer a compelling package for data users that already pay for a data plan on their iPhones (or other smartphones) which was one of the reasons why I opted to get the wifi version and tether my iPhone to the iPad via an app…although this method does require a jailbroken iPhone, there are similar apps for Android devices as well.

Feel free to ask any questions in the comments if you’re curious about the iPad and I’ll try to answer them.

UPDATE (May 10, 2010): Rogers has announced (or rather, Apple has announced it for them) their pricing for the 3G iPad data plans. $15 for 250mb (per month) or $35 for 5gb. If you already have an existing data plan, you can add the iPad to your plan for $20/month. That means that it would cost me $50/month for my 6gb data plan that I can use with my iPhone & iPad (Looks like Apple/Rogers has removed this option – due to negative response?). Um, no thanks, I’ll stick with my tethering option.

UPDATE #2: Keep an eye on Roger’s official blog for more details about iPad pricing…there still seems to be some confusion about how the plans will work and whether there is an addon option.

Keep in mind my initial thoughts are based on using it for a few days….I’m going to be taking it with me to SXSW later this week and using it a lot more down in Texas.

Initial Pluses:

• beautiful screen – bigger and sharper than my iPhone 3GS
• fast performance – much faster Android experience than the LG Eve I’ve previously used
• slick dock that is perfect for a bedside table – the phone recognizes the dock and switches to an alarm clock mode dashboard complete with dimmer screen (and night colours) and even a GPS aware weather widget
• Telus IS faster – their 3G+ network (HSPA) is noticeably faster than my iPhone 3GS on Rogers – not sure if that is due to saturation on Rogers or what but faster is faster

Initial Minuses:

• form factor – not as comfortable in the hand as an iPhone or the LG Eve due to squarer lines and odd placement of buttons and micro-usb ports. The bigger screen and button placement below the screen means lots of awkward finger twister to navigate the phone whereas the iPhone can easily be used with one hand
• the camera – while it’s 5mp and has a flash with autofocus, I’ve yet to take a decent photo with it in low light situations where those features should make it shine above the iPhone’s camera
• Mac support is lacking – Android phones are meant to be synced ‘in the cloud’ but I’d like to simply transfer movies and music to it easily via the usb cable – further investigation of options still needed
• Android Marketplace – at least so far in Canada (on Telus), due to a Google Checkout issue, the only apps available to me are the free ones – I’d like to see some of the premium software for Android and how they compare to my iPhone

I’ll post a more thorough review once I’ve had some serious time with the device…assuming I don’t break it first – cases are incredibly lacking in Canada for this device.

So what Android apps are worth checking out? So far I’m using Seesmic for Twitter, the Facebook app, playing with Layar, Google Goggles and a few other camera apps I’ve found.

Originally I was thinking of going out of town to simply avoid the traffic snarls the games will surely bring (I work in North Vancouver) but those plans were dashed because my wife still has to work during that time…at least some it in her office in West Vancouver. After some thinking and talking to a few friends, I made the decision to take the entire block of time off from work.

So what am I going to do with my time? Plenty!

I’ve got a few things lined up already but I plan on simply being a photographic observer of the games and what they bring to Vancouver and the surrounding area. Yes, even the protests that will surely happen…I’m hoping to cover it all.

Regardless of how you feel about the games, there is no doubt that it will be a spectacle that Vancouver hasn’t seen since Expo 86…possibly even more so because of the scope of the games and the changes it’s brought to the city.

I don’t have any event tickets (at least I haven’t purchased or been given any as of yet) and I’m really more interested in all the ancillary events and gatherings that will occur all over the place outside of the actual sporting events. I figure the sporting events will already be covered by photographers with much better zoom lenses than I own.

As all the countries attending the games will be having open houses celebrating their country and athletes, I plan on doing my own world tour of these sites scattered throughout the city.

A number of friends will be involved in lots of different activities on their own and via the True North Media House so there should be no shortage of meetups, tweetups and photo ops.

Yes, I did apply for media credentials awhile back but was declined as this blog and my Flickr presence doesn’t appear to be enough to warrant accreditation according to VANOC. That’s fine…all those credentials seem to give someone is a place to plug their laptop into the internet in a big media room…I have plenty of options for doing that via friends if necessary.

So if you’ve involved in an event that you’d like to me to visit/photograph during the games, feel free to contact me using my contact form or leave a comment here. I am also available to shoot your event (for hire) pending availability.

I’ll be posting all my photos to my Flickr stream as well I’ve got some plans for setup a sub site to capture all the events but everything will flow through here, like it always does via the sidebar.

My photos will all be posted with a Creative Commons license (like 99% of my photos are) but if you’re interested in using any of them for something other than personal use, feel free to contact me as well.

I’m looking forward to meeting a ton of people and taking thousands of photos over the two week period.

UPDATE: I received media credentials for the B.C. International Media Centre (BCMC) so things could get a whole lot more interesting.

I’ve attended a lot of WordCamps over the years…in a lot of different places. I’ve even had the honour to speak at a few of them too. This time around, I’m on the organizing committee…it remains to be seen if I’ll be speaking as it’s early days so we’ll see how things play out.

WordCamp has been a pretty fantastic place to meet some pretty awesome people, share information about the WordPress platform and have a great time. I learn something new every time I attend one.

If you’re interested in anything to do with blogging or WordPress, I encourage you to sign up for the email updates and/or follow us on Twitter. We’ll share more information as soon as we have more details!

These are some simple tips that I use when I want to buy camera gear. There are lots of factors that can sway where you should buy so hopefully this list will give you a few pointers.

• ask your friends first
  Seems simple enough but camera gear, like computer gear is constantly changing and your friends may want to upgrade so you could score a deal on their used, but still awesome gear.
• buy your gear in the country you live in
  Sure, Amazon or Costco in the US has a better deal on that DSLR than what you can get in Canada, but keep in mind many camera companies don’t have worldwide warranties. If you need service, you may need to send the camera back to the country it was sold in for service. You’ll have to weigh the cost/benefit of saving some money on the upfront purchase versus dealing with cross border issues if you have a problem – for me, my DSLR camera bodies are bought at home but I’m open to deals anywhere for lenses or smaller accessories
• If you decide to cross a border to get a deal, know your options
  Did you know that Oregon has no sales tax? So if you bought say a fisheye lens back when the Canadian dollar was at par, you’d save a ton of money in the deal in taxes and exchange.
• Staying within Canada, consider buying online from places in another province
  I like Henry’s since they only charge sales tax in Ontario. Plus they sell Apple products and quite often have free shipping promotions. Alberta also doesn’t have provincial sales tax.
• Don’t be afraid to pricematch
  Many big stores these days have some kind of pricematching scheme with their competitors – find a deal at one place and if you’re lucky, another place will have a “We’ll beat competitor’s price by X% deal” where you can potentially get 5-15% more off the sale price if you play your cards right
• What about big chain versus small camera store?
  That’s a little tougher to answer. Generally you’ll get way better service at the smaller camera store but their prices are usually higher. Big chain stores tend not to have the variety of gear that the smaller stores do and again, like electronic and computer items, generally don’t have the knowledgeable sales staff. Supporting the little guy is always preferred but sometimes the mighty dollar wins the day. Many smaller places also offer some bonuses that the big guys don’t like free classes (instore) on how to use your new purchase for example.
• Price protection
  Like pricematching, be sure to find out if the store you decide to buy from has some for of price protection. It’s not uncommon for the big chain stores to have sales that rotate during a month. So you buy the camera one week and then two weeks later it’s on sale for $100s off – as long as you have the receipt, you should be able to get that cash back. Be diligent, even after you’ve made your purchase to check the flyers…at least until the window of opportunity closes
• What about eBay and Craigslist?
  If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I buy a lot of gear from eBay – usually it’s offshore, sometimes its knockoff but it’s always cheap(er). It really depends on what you’re looking for. Personally, I don’t like buying camera gear second hand due to it’s delicate nature – you don’t know how many times that lens has been dropped. But for other things like cables, filters, etc, go crazy. If nothing else, eBay is usually a great resource to get more information about something you’re interested in as many of the sellers have incredibly detailed listings that answers questions the manufacturers websites don’t always.
• Buy with a credit card
  No matter where you buy it from, use a credit card, preferably you have one that extends the warranty (usually doubling the manufacturers warranty) and one that protects your purchase right out of the gate from theft or damage. If you buy online, this also protects you from scams although you probably won’t have a choice but to pay via credit card online (avoid PayPal if possible as you won’t have the same level of protection as you get with a credit card). Check the fine print or call your card provider to know what your card entitles you to. My experience with extended warranties via credit card has been excellent although it was for a computer repair, not camera gear.

Hopefully these tips help you have an awesome buying experience getting your new gear!

UPDATE: John Goldsmith (aka Waxy Poetic) reminded me on Twitter about PhotoPrice.ca which shows you the current prices on just about every piece of camera gear you’d want to buy…including US prices from a number of locations. Check there first!

A few years ago, my wife and I tried out a number of the VOIP players (in Canada) to save money on our landline. We tried Vonage and it was horrible…although I suspect it was possibly either a crappy Linksys router I had at the time or traffic shaping by my ISP that was causing the poor audio quality.
We eventually decided to ditch the landline altogether and simply increase our cellular plans to the point of being more practical as a landline replacement. The money we were spending on a landline (VOIP or otherwise) was greater than making a few adjustments to our cellular plans. We currently have a family plan where we can call each other unlimited locally and have a few hundred long distance minutes between each other a month for anywhere in Canada (I can call her in Vancovuer from Toronto and it’s treated like a free local call).

We don’t do a lot of long distance but needed to find a better, cheaper way to make long distance calls on our cell phones. Our provider didn’t really have any compelling options for long distance that were affordable so we looked elsewhere.

We actually use two different services which I’ll explain in a minute why.

The first service is Yak.ca. They have decent rates for North America and bill you monthly. Make sure you don’t get a paper invoice to save the admin fee. The thing we like about Yak is that they have a callback service. We have unlimited incoming calls on our phones and this means we place a call to the Yak service number, hang up and then 2 seconds later, the service calls us back and then we dial our number. This works great during the day or anytime outside of the evenings & weekend hours. They also have local access numbers you can use as well.

The other service we occasionally use is XpressCall which is a prepaid service. We use this service typically on weekends or during free evenings as their rates are slightly better than Yak. They regularly have top up deals where you put $10 on your account and they give you a bonus. This service is a dialaround one where you dial one number, then dial your destination number – it also tells you how many minutes you have left based on the number you dialed and how much you’ve prepaid which is a nice feature. I have a number of pre-programmed contacts that use this service so I don’t have to remember the digits for my parents for example.

Both services work great with our iPhones and Yak also has a calling card you can use with any phone (if you’re at work or a friend’s).

I’m still expecting some surprises from Rogers/Fido for current customers….last year they relaxed the upgrade rules a few weeks after the initial launch…most likely to boost sales after the initial rush.

The thing most people aren’t realizing is that they got the iPhone 3G was a subsidized device….the initial iPhone cost $499US when it launched in 2007 from AT&T then dropped to $299 in 2008 under a subsidy. I would expect those with a high monthly iPhone bill to get a break on the ‘rumoured’ full, no-contract prices for the 3GS of $699/$799 for the 16gb and 32gb respectively since they’ve most likely paid a fair bit of their subsidy down. But since Rogers/Fido uses a fairly complex tier scheme to catagorize their customers, the prices will most likely vary by individual account…possibly another reason why they are keeping the prices quiet since they may not have a blanket price for all 3G owners that want to upgrade.

On the bright side, it looks like there will be a full unlock/jailbreak by the weekend for the 3GS….hello Ultrasn0w!

I guess we’ll have to see what transpires over the next couple of days leading up to the release on Friday of the 3GS.

UPDATE: As I predicted, Rogers came out with decent upgrade pricing for iPhone 3GS. You can read the specifics on the Rogers and Fido websites. Pricing varies by your account specifics but assuming you got an iPhone 3G last year before September and have a certain level of voice/data plan combination, you should be able to upgrade for the ‘new customer’ price of $199/$299.

As I said on Twitter to the Rogers PR person, “RogersKeith“, I hope that he relays to his superiors the frustration felt by many customers (not just me) by leaving the pricing details to the last minute. It’s not a good way to engage and endear customers to your brand, especially in the fast moving social media world we now live in.

While not quite the angry mob like last year, anger was certainly growing online because of the lack of information when other carriers around the world had made their plans known in advance. Hopefully they learn from this experience for next year when Apple will inevitably release another version of the iPhone and all the 3GS owners will want to upgrade. RogersKeith said on Twitter, “iPhone launches aren’t typical” to which I replied that iPhone users aren’t typical either….this isn’t your daddy’s Blackberry hardware refresh.

UPDATE 2 (June 20th): The good news is that I finally have an iPhone 3GS. The bad news is that it took over 6 hours of wasted time to get it. I went down to Wireless Wave bright and early on launch day (19th). I was first in line of about 5-6 people. I expected the computer systems to be totally overwelmed and of course they were so the dealer wasn’t even able to log in and see my availability for a long time. I’m pretty sure Rogers computer systems are running on Vic-20′s. I waited about 4 hours at the store for them to be able to process my phone upgrade which they were unable to do. I don’t blame Wireless Wave, I blame Rogers unpreparedness for this portion. Unfortunately, I couldn’t wait at the store any longer as I had to leave for Whistler. Since I was leaving town, I basically had to give up the phone I had on hold – I was hoping to get one from a dealer en route to Whistler but alas all were sold out. I came back from Whistler on Saturday morning and called the same Wireless Wave to see if they still had stock. I was told they didn’t over the phone. A friend had called the Apple Store and was told they were doing upgrades as well as new activations so I stopped by there on the way back from Whistler and was told they weren’t doing upgrades in the store right now. I then had a friend check in with Wireless Wave if they had any stock left and they did so I was back in the line for one. I was told they would process the order and it should be ready by the time I got to the store. It wasn’t. They basically set it aside for me and were going to process the paperwork when I actually showed up. Then began the 45 minute wait on hold for the Rogers dealer person to confirm that I was in fact eligible for a hardware upgrade (at $299). Once the dealer finally got through, they confirmed I was eligible. There was a problem though – the Rogers computer system (Sales Central) didn’t show that I was eligible for any kind of upgrade. The manager at Wireless Wave wouldn’t process a manual transaction for the phone because it’s their policy to not do them as there is a chance the paperwork will fall through the cracks and they won’t get their commission. The manager did call his bosses who confirmed that he wouldn’t be able to sell me the phone despite being eligible. A visit to another store in the mall confirmed the same thing. It wasn’t until I got a tip from Gary that there was a store in another mall that had staff that should be able to help me as he had a similar issue with his upgrade. I drove over to that mall, and within ten minutes of dealing with Thomas and Kelsey, left the store with my 32gb iPhone 3GS. They appeared to have no issue doing a manual transaction with the approval of the dealer call centre.

So what are the issues here? Well, inconsistent policies for handling customer upgrades – even between stores of the same dealer. I really suspect that the reason Wireless Wave didn’t want to sell me the iPhone was that because I wasn’t a new activation, they weren’t going to make as much commission. The fact that they led me on for over 6 hours also pissed me off. I know the systems were busy but I didn’t get a sense they were really trying too hard to get the answers they needed to get. There seemed to be a lot of policies that threatened termination if not followed correctly that the staff kept bringing up. The fact that other customers were able to get iPhones also pissed me off as I know that some of those people had the same account setup as me. A couple of friends that came with me to the store on launch day all had different experiences with getting the upgrade but had similar account/upgrade configurations as me.

I even decided to reach out to the Rogers PR person on Twitter who ultimately wasn’t needed to help me get the phone but did result in my getting a call from an advisor from the (Rogers) President’s office who wanted to know the full story. We had a good discussion about the problems I encountered and had I not been successful the day before, I’m pretty sure he would have helped me get a phone today. I wanted to make sure they understood this iPhone thing isn’t a fad and there will be another update next year so hopefully they will fix some/all of these issues – which are really more communication issues between Rogers and their dealer network. Customers shouldn’t have to run all over town to get a phone upgrade if they’re eligible.

Overall, I feel that Rogers did everything they could *for me* given the situation. Twitter was instrumental in helping me get in contact with the right people to escalate my concerns. So we’ll see what happens in 2010…I sure hope I’m not writing another deja vu post.

The purpose of the event was to let the local community know more about Bluewater Adventures which was recently proclaimed “one of the Best Travel Companies on Earth” by National Geographic Adventure Magazine who rated them 93.6% overall and 100% in customer satisfaction.

Compared to the other event, this was a much more intimate affair. It was like a floating kitchen party.

Did I say kitchen? Of course there was food:

The sailing tours (or ‘adventures‘ as they call them) cover pretty much the entire West Coast from the Gulf Islands up to Alaska and most points in between including the Queen Charlotte Islands. These trips also focus on a number of ‘eco-actions‘ including the entire trip being carbon neutral.

After getting to experience an afternoon on the boat, I can see why this form of touring the West Coast is so appealing and was honestly something that I’d never considered doing myself. It’s a very relaxing way to travel with all the comforts of home onboard. Something else I wasn’t aware of was the fact that a biologist accompanies all tours to help answer any questions guests have about the environment.

The famous WigWam Inn:

One thing that really hit home this past week of boating is how freakin’ amazing BC really is. We really do take for granted the beauty that is right around us and people from all over the world come here to experience it. This whole ‘tourist in your own town’ thing is really under-rated.

I thought it might be fun to clamp a camera to the boat and make a little time lapse of our trip and it turned out pretty well:

You can view my entire photoset on Flickr – and all the photos are geotagged so you can see exactly where each one was taken along the trip up Indian Arm (click the ‘map’ link on each photo).

Thanks to our hosts at Bluewater Adventures (who are also on Twitter) for opening my eyes to a truly amazing way of exploring the province.

Oh well, it crashes anyways:

Update: Looks like the crashing is only a problem on jailbroken iPhones…updating Cydia seems to stop the crashing!

Things kicked off Thursday at Federico’s Supper Club with the somewhat controversial (due to political sponsorship) opening dinner which was a lot of fun.

It seems this photo of Jenn and Nadia is a little popular with a few folks online.

I’m not sure why…maybe the lighting?

After a fun night out for dinner, it was up bright and early Friday morning for MooseCamp at the beautiful Forestry Sciences Building at UBC.

Hopefully next year a few more people will show up…

For the most part, I used my fisheye lens the whole weekend….what can I say, I love that lens. Here’s a few more images from the weekend:

Tim Bray led an awesome PhotoCamp this year which as always was a great geek out session for the photographers in attendance. The first thing he asked everyone to do was to take a photo of their neighbour in the room. Here’s my shot of Anthony taken with my LensBaby Composer (unfortunately the only time I had it on my camera the whole weekend):

You can view my complete Flickr set for Northern Voice and check out everyone’s photos tagged for the conference which as I post this was well over 1200 photos.

I want to thank the organizers for all their hard work in putting on one of my favorite conferences every year.

Even the Canucks managed to win a couple games this weekend while the conference was on.

Yes, it was a great weekend.

Met a ton of people in real life I follow on Twitter as well as a whole bunch of new people that I’m now following. I shot a pile of photos and put together a short video from the very successful event (apparently enough was raised to build a well):

YVR Twestival from John Biehler on Vimeo.

John Chow (with an appearance by yours truly) and Jordan Behan also shot some fun videos last night.

Looking forward to the next big Twitter gathering – especially when social media folks can do some good.

After seeing it mentioned on a number of forums, it appears that Rogers has changed that eligibility from 12 months down to 3 months. My wife who had upgraded in March of this year, would have had to wait until March 2009 to get one but I was able to successfully order one for her today (16gb for $349) and it’s shipping out on Monday.

So if you’ve been thinking you weren’t eligible to get an iPhone and wanted one, simply log into your Rogers online account and choose ‘upgrade my phone’ – if it shows an iPhone as an option, you should be able to do it online, on the phone or in store (fastest).

I’m not a Fido customer so I can’t confirm this is true with them but I presume since they are owned by Rogers, the same rule would now apply if you’re with Fido.

Just in time to grab that $30/6gb data plan before it expires at the end of this month.

Here’s my quick take on it which is appropriate since I only had it for about 20 minutes to play with:

Things I liked:

• smaller than an iPhone and feels nice in the hand while holding it to use as a phone
• has haptic feedback (vibration) so when you press on a button or type on the touchscreen, you get tactile feedback
• turn-by-turn GPS navigation although I couldn’t truly test this out inside a bar
• no configure voice commands to launch apps and services as well as dialing
• nice roomy landscape keyboard made it easy to thumb type
• a couple of slick games included (albeit demos) including a nice version of Scene It (movie trivia) which was fun to play – not sure of other game purchase/download options
• very cheap unlimited data plan from Bell or Telus ($10) but that may also be a negative since there are no 3rd party apps (yet)
• the phone dialer and related features seems simple and intuitive although some elements of the UI seemed Apple-ish (swipe to end call)
• beefy, removable battery
• much better weather app than the iPhone

Things I didn’t like:

• no wifi – maybe the thinking is you’ve got unlimited data, why would you need wifi?
• somewhat clunky touchscreen – perhaps due to a calibration issue on my demo unit but haven’t we moved beyond calibration?
• non-standard browser which seems to have trouble loading/sizing images and rendering basic css
• I was under the impression it was Windows Mobile under the hood – it’s not (it’s Samsung’s own creation) which actually makes things worse since there isn’t access to that library of (WM) software available to users although the Samsung rep did say that 3rd party apps ‘were possible’ but would most likely have to come from the carrier
• the IM button launches Windows Live….mmmkay.
• the camera was about the same as the iPhone (2 megapixels) so it looked like crap inside the bar with low light
• in my limited time with the device, multiple times I was holding it portrait and while using it, would be forced to use the keyboard in landscape mode. I later found out there is a button to change the orientation on the keyboard itself but it was clunky when compared to the iPhone’s auto-rotation depending on its orientation
• Stylus? McFly?
• again, I’m not sure if it was just my demo device or not but it seemed that whenever I did anything related to the internet, I’d get some kind of warning screen that I was about to incur data charges. I would assume the demo units were on the cheap data plan but maybe not. I would also assume that if you were on said plan, you wouldn’t be told this over and over again
• no camera flash but the iPhone doesn’t have one either so not a huge deal to me
• playing back some of the demo videoclips on my device looked like crap and weren’t full screen – the media player seemed lacking

Overall it wasn’t a horrible device and I probably could have used more time with it to fully explore it’s features…it just seemed like it was designed in a world where the iPhone didn’t exist (CDMA land?). I really was hoping it would offer more competitive features but unfortunately, the Instinct comes across as a Windows Mobile clone that is trying to look as slick as the iPhone.

I could see this phone being ideal for someone that is stuck on a CDMA carrier or that possibly doesn’t need or want the expanded options the iPhone has (which come with a higher sticker and data-plan price).

I’m still amazed that (in my opinion, of course, since this is my blog) none of the phone manufacturers have managed to actually create an iPhone killer yet. Not even close. Which is really too bad…competition is always good and only benefits the consumer in the end.

One final note about Samsung: I think the person behind @theinstinct on Twitter has been doing a great job at responding to the detractors, helping spread the word about the product and answering questions in a positive and professional manner. It is refreshing to see bigger companies using social media to try to engage an audience…even if it may seem like an uphill battle against strong competition. Perhaps Samsung just hired the right people to promote the Instinct.

It looks like some Future Shop locations are getting the Apple Store within-a-store treatment:

This is part of an expanded deal between Apple and Best Buy (Future Shop’s parent company) and has been going on for awhile now in the US and in some Canadian Best Buy stores.

It’s interesting to note that this mini-store-within-the-store is right at the mall entrance of the newly renovated Future Shop within a fairly upscale mall in West Vancouver…a pretty high profile location for Apple’s products. There was even an ‘Apple Specialist’ on hand to help answer questions. It also appears that Future Shop’s renovations have also changed their customer service counter (for computer returns/repairs) into a wannabe Genius Bar (not pictured).

Update: They didn’t just get an Apple Store, they also got a full makeover! I was invited to their re-opening event and got to roam around taking photos. Seems they are trying to position the Future Shop brand as the higher end store over Best Buy (think The Bay and Zellers – same company, different product lines and target market). I actually thought it was the other way around. Derek has an excellent writeup of the event and store changes. Here’s some photos from the event: