Lately SXSW has been awash is social media and marketing sessions (even my session with Chris Heuer earlier this year fell into that category). This time around, I’ve proposed a solo session on something a little different, something that I’m very passionate about and hope that it will inspire attendees like I was inspired in my first years attending SXSW when there were a lot more creative sessions that had less to do with the web, but rather helped inspire you to make the web better.

So what is it? Well, it’s a session about creating timelapse movies, which are basically still frames shown in sequence. Here’s a couple of samples:

While not directly related to the ‘interactive’ side of SXSW, they have been trying to overlap & commingle the film audience the last few years. I considered submitting this to the Film program but figure the filmmakers would already know how to make these. I’ve given a version of this presentation at Northern Voice during PhotoCamp and plan to expand it and include some new content, especially given the larger time slot. Based on the feedback I received from Northern Voice attendees, my hope is that this session will help inspire people that haven’t considered making these kinds of movies because either they didn’t know how to or didn’t think they had the right gear – both points (and more) will be covered off (short answer is that it’s easy and you can make these with just about any camera, you don’t really need special, expensive gear to do it).

Whether you’re planning on attending or not, please considering giving me a thumbs up vote for my submission, called Create Timelapse movies without a Flux Capacitor – it only takes a minute to signup if you don’t already have an account. Although it only counts for 30% of the total score as to whether it will be accepted, it’s still an important component of getting in.

Thanks and I look forward to seeing you in Austin next year!

There has been previous attempts at MAME on the iPhone but none work as well as this one. To get it, you’ll need to grab it from Cydia by searching for iMAME4all. You’ll also need to have game roms (don’t ask me for them – Google is your friend) which you’ll need to SSH to your device once it’s installed (instructions are within the app and on Cydia when you download it).

I installed it and threw a few of my favorites onto my iPhone to see how it runs…and it runs really well. It will just take a little time to get used to the touch controls.

Pro Tip: When you are prompted with an “OK to continue” prompt, press left then right on the Dpad

You can even configure some of the screen effects like scanlines by hitting the R2 button and choosing options.

This build of iMAME4all supports approximately 2000 game roms…although not all work perfectly….but most do, the trick is just to find a complete rom set for each game as a number of games I tried didn’t work as they were missing files…which can be fixed by repacking the zip file that contains the rom.

So what’s your favorite retro videogame that isn’t currently on the App Store that you can’t wait to run with this?

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!

We happened to be waiting to get our iPhones at a Rogers video store that carried videogame gear….turns out the Xbox 360 camera that comes with the In The Movies game kit (I got it on clearance for $24 but have been spotted cheaper) works perfectly on a Mac…in my case, my new Mac Mini Server that I picked up a little while back.

So I bought the camera and the app and as soon as I got home, I set it up…well, I may have played with the new iPhone a little bit first.

To make it all work, you need to download some software for your computer (Mac or PC). It’s a free download from the makers of the iPhone app:

It’s pretty straightforward to setup, just ensure that a camera of some kind (built in iSights work fine) before running the software and ideally, the computer will be on all the time. In my case, my Mini is a file/web server so it’s on all the time.

You choose your video/audio sources, create a username and password that is unique to you. You can give your camera a name and set the motion sensitivity settings…you can leave these at the defaults to start. The rest of the shots are screenshots taken from my iPhone. The great thing about this app is that you can easily configure it remotely on an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. The computer based software can also be accessed from any java capable browser, but that’s not a cool as from your phone.

Once you’ve downloaded and installed the iPhone/iPad app, you simply enter the username/password from your Mac/PC setup and it should just find it and start up the camera – no firewall or proxy settings necessary. By default, it launches with four windows (as it supports up to four cameras) so just tap on the window that has your camera source in it and it should go full screen.

Tap the screen and you’ll be able to adjust a number of settings, including the motion sensitivity and push notifications. If you have pets or lots of outdoor light in the room that you have the camera setup in, you’ll need to adjust this. The motion button will light up green when it detects motion.

I love the notifications that pop up on my iPhone. I simply swipe to unlock my phone, and it takes me straight into the webcam view without doing anything else.

If you choose to record motion events, you’ll be able to view them remotely as well:

The motion events are basically stills capturing the motion and you can play them back like a timelapse movie directly off your iPhone remotely.

All in all, it’s a pretty simple, yet effective security camera system for about $30 for the camera and app…and you may already have a camera so it’s only a $5 investment.

A new iPad application, called Flipboard, was released last night amid much fanfare from a number of prominent folks on Twitter (Robert Scoble is who introduced it to me).

After finally getting it downloaded and setup, which took awhile due to heavy demand right out of the gate, I have to say, it lives up to the hype.

It lets you add your Twitter and Facebook feeds, along with a number of selectable content categories (you can’t add your own RSS feeds, at least not yet) and it presents all that content as a completely personalized magazine to you. The screenshots in this post are from my own Facebook content, presented in Flipboard.

Server overload and few other glitches aside, it’s pretty slick and can only get better as they expand the content offerings.

Check out this video explaining more about it:

After playing with it for awhile, I agree it’s a pretty compelling way to view your social world. I love that the magazine is different everytime you open it…although I do wish there was an offline cache version as it seems to choke if you don’t have a net connection.

Did I mention it’s free on the app store?

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.

Things started off at the Rodeo:

Followed by the Chuck Wagon races which are insane:

After the last race, they hauled this huge stage onto the main track area:

The stage was where the Grandstand Show (called World Party) was held…I was skeptical at first but it turned out to be very entertaining, featuring all kinds of performances (including Cirque du Soleil performers from Quidam, and crazy motorcycle stunts), finishing off with one of the most impressive fireworks shows I’ve ever seen in person:

We finished up the night with a trip through the midway:

I tried a deep fried Snickers. You can view my full set of photos on Flickr.

Special thank you to Hala Dehais (Calgary Stampede) and Judy Love Rondeau (Tourism Alberta) for their assistance with media access to the Rodeo and Chuckwagon races and to Tom and Donna with WOMWorld/Nokia for getting me there – how I got there will be the topic of my next post but here’s a hint:

I gave a talk about using MAMP/WAMP for offline WordPress development. My slide deck was pretty short due to the live demo nature of the topic but you can view the PDF if you’re so inclined.

Justin Carlson recorded the sessions for us (head over to his site for the rest of them – some of them may even appear on WordPress.tv soon) so if you want to watch me get nerdy for about 1/2 an hour, hit play:

One of my tasks as a WordCamp organizer was to sort out internet access for the attendees. Thanks to Miranda & Melanie at Rogers Communications, I was able to borrow a few of their Rocket Internet Hubs which Dale Mugford & I setup in the various rooms at the MOV.

I’m still surprised how well these units performed considering the number of users sharing them (some of whom were streaming World Cup games). Dale connected them to a couple Airport Extremes along with some Airport Express extenders so that we could have one big wifi net and I didn’t hear anyone have issues with the internet so I’m grateful for Roger’s helping us out in a big way….having solid internet is a common issue at many conferences that we didn’t have.

As with all the previous WordCamps I’ve attended, I had a great time and met a bunch of new people that seemed to enjoy our little conference. Next year when talk starts up again, I’ll remember those folks I met and not think about all the effort that goes into pulling off a conference like this which usually seems too daunting.

Thanks to all our sponsors that helped make the event affordable and the speakers that volunteered their time to make it the success that it was.

Special thanks to my pal, Dave Olson, who not only brought down the house at the end of WordCamp, also put me up the night before and made sure I got back from our speakers dinner, um, safely. It seems that whenever we get together, we have some amazing adventures.

See you next year!

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.

It’s a simple set of two dock connecting devices, one for SD cards and the other for USB, not unlike a USB SD card reader I have (in the middle):

When you first connect one of the adapters to the iPad, it automatically launches the Photos app and displays a new tab called ‘Camera’ and begins to load image thumbnail previews:

You’ll also notice that it there is also a ‘Places’ tab – I didn’t have this tab before connecting the camera kit and it plots all the geotagged photos on the iPad on a map:

Once the previews are loaded, you can select which photos to import or import all of them:

Once the import is done, you can then choose to keep or delete the photos:

The photos are now available in your camera roll in the ‘All imported’ album with the most recently imported batch in a ‘last import’ album. Any videos in your imports will also now be playable, as long as they are in the correct codec/format that the iPad can understand. I found that videos shot with my cameras varied but the files, while not playable, would be playable when I synced the iPad back to a computer, on the computer.

A side benefit of the video support, especially when travelling, is that you can load up a huge SD card with iPad playable movies and just import the ones you want. Once you watch them, delete and load more. It saves the steps of loading them into iTunes (assuming you made/ripped them yourself – DRM’d/rented movies won’t work this way) and having to allocate space for them during syncing. This also means you may not really need that 64GB iPad since you can literally just save a gig or two for movies and add/remove as necessary. This would have been handy during my trip to Hawaii but I didn’t have the camera kit yet.

From here, you can simply view and email your photos like normal. That’s pretty much all there is to it. But I’d like to be able to apply some post processing to some of the photos and have found that CameraBag for iPad is the most interesting app currently out. I first wrote about CameraBag for iPhone two years ago and have been very impressed with the new version for the iPad.

Once CameraBag is launched, you can select your camera roll to import photos via the top left icon:

Using the options on the bottom right, you can process the original photo in any of the preset modes:

as well, you can mix and match the borders and crops as you’d like or choose ‘Vary’ for a random effect combination:

The settings popup lets you choose the size of the saved image as well as modify the list of filter options:

I’m pretty happy with the results of this super portable combination:

If you’re into photography and have an iPad, you’ll definitely want to pick up a camera kit…it even supports RAW files. Too bad it doesn’t work with the current iPhone 3GS – it would be pretty awesome to be able to upload straight off the camera to the internet via just the iPhone.

Maybe the next OS update (or hardware revision expected to be announced next week) will allow this.

As I mentioned previously, I’m not an opera goer and was not familiar with the material. I was told that I would have probably heard some of the music used in Butterfly and that the plot shouldn’t be a big surprise as it’s a commonly occurring one (I won’t spoil it in case you don’t know what I’m talking about). Both these points turned out to be very true.

As before, we were given a backstage tour before the show which I quite enjoy.

The set this time around was quite different from Norma’s with its vertigo inducing lines and bold shapes and colours. On the tour, Kelsey suggested that it could easily be used as a set for a 60′s game show.

I love seeing the ‘craft’ that goes into a production of this scale after my humble beginnings producing plays in local *cough no budget cough* theatre.

Unlike my previous visit to the Opera, this time we had front row seats. I liked this A LOT. It dramatically improved my appreciation for what was unfolding on stage where I could see every nuance of the actors performances as well as a perfect view of the stage. If I stood up a little, I could even peer down into the orchestra pit:

Last time, I was fairly far back on the main floor. Not a horrible place to view the Opera from by any means, it’s just a much better experience in the front in my opinion.

Puccini’s music certainly was familiar to me. As had been suggested to me, it has been used in many movies before. It was nice to finally connect the dots on something like this so I now know where it came from.

Again, like last time, this Opera reminded me of a videogame. Due to it’s strikingly bold colours & costumes, strong visuals and somewhat nautical theme (thanks to Mr. Pinkerton), I was immediately thinking of the Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. The game contains many similar traits to Madama Butterfly with it’s family ties, bold colours, dramatic music and many simple characters. The musical interlude between the second and third acts even further strengthened this connection for me with the three panels of video projections that could have easily been produced for the videogame (this isn’t a bad thing).

Due to my seat in the front row, the surtitles above weren’t that readable without craning my neck but I found the story easy enough to follow along without too many looks upward.

I thoroughly enjoyed this performance. Clocking in at around 2 hours 40 minutes, I can’t recall a single time when I was thinking it was dragging or was slow. It actually seemed to be fairly quick and before I knew it, I was backstage afterwards meeting the cast.

One final thing that still surprises me that happens during the final bows at the end of both Opera’s I’ve attended is the extended ovation that gradually builds as the performers come out. For Butterfly, it went on for a long time and it was cool to see the passion the audience had for these performers. It’s not often you see an older gentleman hoot and holler while wearing a tux.

As a side note, this post and photos was mostly created on the iPad during the course of the evening…which in itself was fun thanks to a number of curious Opera goers inquiring about it during the intermission.

After finally obtaining the camera connection kit for the iPad, I thought it would be a good test to see if you could in fact, use an iPad completely in place of a laptop to photograph/process/upload photos, and write a blog post on the spot.

It almost worked.

I was able to shoot backstage photos, download them to the iPad, post-processed a few favs with the Camerabag for iPad app, upload them to Flickr/Twitter during the performance straight off the iPad.

Using the WordPress iPad app proved to be the weakest link unfortunately…I had to resort to my laptop (at home later since I didn’t bring it to the show) because the app was too flaky for my workflow and it was tedious to switch back and forth from Flickr to the app to paste in the photos (I rarely upload my photos directly into WordPress, but instead embed them from my Flickr account) – it probably would have better to simply use Safari for the WordPress side for this task.

That aside, I am impressed with how well the photo side of things worked out and look forward to being to upload photos on the go at other events.

The day before I left, I decided that I’d buy Kodak’s latest HD camera in the Zx line, the PlaySport (aka Zx3) which has a lot of the same features of the Zx1, except that it’s waterproof (to 3m/10ft), shoots in 1080p (@30fps) and has electronic image stabilization.

I had read some reviews and everyone seemed to agree it was perfect for snorkelling and similar water sports. I was impressed with a few videos I came across so decided to pull the trigger and bought one just before we left.

I am SO glad I did. Take a look at these clips…ideally in 720p HD, which is how I shot them (at 60fps) to see why:

I’m still blown away by the quality of this ~$150 HD camera…especially since it’s waterproof…many point & shoot camera manufacturers sell waterproof housings for their cameras for that price (plus the camera cost).

I was also impressed by the quality of the 5 megapixel still images the camera took:

Considering it was always around my neck while I was in the water, I was able to get still shots I wouldn’t normally get to take with my regular cameras without some kind of expensive protection.

My only gripes with the camera are:

• weird underwater audio – obviously, there isn’t much to record underwater, but there is a lot of strange digital noise mixed in with the recorded audio of my Darth Vader breathing and ocean gurgling
• the ‘H2O’ mode doesn’t stick when set – this seems to improve the underwater audio quality but unless you leave the camera on the whole time, I had to manually set it to this mode every time I powered on the camera. Definitely not ideal.
• battery life – didn’t seem to last as long as the AA’s in my Zx1 do. As it uses the KLIC-7004 Li-Ion battery pack, it wasn’t as convenient to swap batteries like the Zx1 – unless I bought a second battery
• wrist strap – seems like it would have been better to include a neck strap for in water use – I just clipped the included wriststrap to a lanyard I had to accomplish the same thing

Despite the issues above, I still think it’s a great camera. Hopefully a firmware update can address the H2O mode audio issue.

I wish I had went with my original plan to just use this camera and my Nikon P6000 point and shoot camera on my trip…the one day that I decided to not ‘get wet’ and take my DSLR out for photo ops, I managed to slip on a rock on the shoreline and while trying to save my DSLR which was in my hand, my camera bag containing my 35mm and 10.5mm fisheye lenses went for a quick dip in the ocean…the 35mm is electronically dead and the fisheye will probably seize up soon. Also two batteries for the P6000 (also in the bag) got nuked in the salt water. Then, moments later, while I was assessing the damage done, a ‘rogue’ wave soaked me (I was still on the shoreline) and completely killed my iPhone 3GS.

Yeah, it was an expensive and depressing day. Next beach vacation, it’s the PlaySport only for me.

Update: Here’s another video (with clips from the above ones) with about 99% footage shot with the PlaySport (the turtle in the sand clip was shot with my P6000):

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.

The first weekend, as a guest of the fantastic Whistler/Blackcomb Media team, I got to stay in the amazing Dream House that lived up to it’s title. A fantastically appointed 5 bedroom ski in/out lodge right under the Blackcomb Gondola complete with hot tub on the deck which I spent a large amount of time in:

Shortly after arriving, we found out that the house was hosting a party with a huge list of who’s who in ski and snowboard media, gear makers and a number of world class athletes. Word quickly spread that I had my iPad with me and I gave a bunch of demos of it and had some great conversations with photographers and magazine people about the device and how it had the potential to transform their industries. I also learned a new trick that I have yet to master but I’ll keep practicing. It was a great way to get settled into my new home for the next couple of days.

One of the more interesting things (to me) that happens at the festival is a number of different photo & video contests that happen. There is a 72 hour film showdown where teams have 72 hours to make a video that is then screened and judged. There are also a couple other photo contests including the Pro Photo Showdown where some of the best ski & snow photographers compete. Unfortunately, these events happened mid week so I missed them but I’m thinking they are a great reason to come back next year and get more involved in them. Getting to meet a lot of the people competing in these competitions also made me envious of what they were doing as it seemed to be an absolutely fun way to compete, doing something they love.

The next day started off with a new experience for me: a visit to the spa!

I had already spent a fair bit of time in the house hot tub (hey, it was there and somebody had to use it) so the idea of going somewhere for more hydro therapy was very appealing. I’d never been to a spa of any kind before and apparently the Scandinave Spa was a pretty special place. It’s a huge outdoor facility with pools scattered amongst other buildings which housed different types of wet and dry saunas, including the amazing Eucalyptus steam room (the red building in the photo above) – it felt like you were inside a Halls lozenge…in a good way. Then it was suggested that you jump into the cold pool for full effect…it was actually quite exhilarating.

Being a first timer at a place like this, which is really an adult playground, I kind of felt like I was in a James Bond movie…expecting Sean Connery to come out of the steam room and then ninjas would jump out of the bushes and attack. I know that may not sound relaxing but it was still a pretty cool place to visit. We were all very mellow afterwards so clearly the spa experience is relaxing.

Next up was a visit to Sushi Village for dinner. Now I’m not a seafood eater so I was a little nervous about going for sushi but my hosts assured me they would help me navigate the choices. Worse case, I could order some chicken ‘KFC rolls’ if the fish didn’t work for me.

I figured I was already trying new things and might as well try new foods while I’m at it. I had tried sushi in the past was never compelled to try more than one or two pieces before being turned off. Thanks to everyone’s help, I eased into it and eventually found myself quite enjoying it all…It would appear that fresh & quality seafood really makes the difference. Or perhaps it was the Saki Margaritas. In any case, it was fun experience with great company.

The buildings in the village were a fantastic backdrop/screen for some awesome video projections during the opening kick off party later that night…including these retro videogame visuals:

It was pretty cool to hear the Donkey Kong theme blasting throughout the village while being projected on the side of a hotel.

Before we headed home the first weekend, we spent a fantastic afternoon sitting on a patio in the Village watching the Whistler Chef Challenge in front of Araxi:

It was a frenetic cookoff with lots of chefs competing Iron Chef style in timed challenges then judged on the spot to see who would advance to the next level:

Heading home that day was tough – the festival was just getting underway and we had to head home. But a few of us were coming back the following weekend so we had that to look forward to.

Fast forward to the following Friday, John, Rebecca & I met up again to participate in the Chevy Road Trip to WSSF along with some other media folks (Chevy is one of the sponsors of WSSF). We were loaned a brand new Chevrolet Equinox to drive up to Whistler and take in the rest of the festival (although this photo was taken at the Squamish Spit):

One thing we tried to do the previous weekend but didn’t make it before they closed was to visit the Grilled Fromage in Squamish. Rebecca had gushed about this place and I’m a big fan of grilled cheese sandwhiches so we convinced the rest of the Road Trippers to stop off and get our cheese on:

It’s a fun little diner that features over 60 different kinds of grilled cheese sandwhiches with a cheesy decor that includes a ton of cheesy things that I could spend all day browsing around the shop:

I opted for a smoked gouda, bacon & pickle sandwich which goes by the name of the ‘Polyester & Pickle’ which was amazing:

Once checked into our hotel in Whistler, we headed to the Fashion Exposed show to see the latest in ski and snowboard fashions all the while, a couple of great bands (The Zolas and We Are the City) performed in the middle of the runway.

We spent Saturday checking out the many WSSF events around the Village including getting to test drive a bunch of different vehicles including a Camaro and a few hybrid trucks which were on hand for anyone at the festival to take for a spin:

So much going on and I didn’t even set foot on the mountain where there was a whole other set of ski & snowboard events happening. As I said earlier, next year, I’ll have to plan to spend more time up there for the full festival. It was still an amazing couple of weekends in Whistler.

A huge thank you to Amber, Michelle, Tabetha & Stephanie for hosting me the first weekend and George, Janice, and Fred for hosting the second weekend.

You can view my full WSSF 2010 photoset on Flickr.

Update: I figured I could probably do a separate post just about all the food photos I took at Whistler but because she mentioned it and did suggest an awesome place for breakfast, I give you VanCity Allie’s ‘Meat Pile’ from our breakfast at Elements in the Village:

What’s the recipe for a Blogger Night at the Opera? A table of laptops, black coffee and a Twitter photo booth at the ready. Mix in eager blogger participants (myself, Tris Hussey, Gus Fosarolli and Kelsey Dundon) and you get the clicking of keys on laptops before the show and – even more frantically – during the intermission.

Thanks to Ling Chan and John Biehler, my wife Marilyn and I were able to attend this Blogger Night At the Opera, which turned out to be a very enjoyable experience for both of us. Sitting at the table in the lobby pre-show for the opening night of The Marriage of Figaro at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre felt a little like “bloggers on parade”, but it was very social as well. Plenty of friendly people dropping by to see what we were up to, with lots of questions about both the blogging world and that thing called the iPad that I happened to be working with (thx for the insight, Tris :p).

Having no opera experience whatsoever, I had no idea what I was in for. I did the usual Wikipedia lookup beforehand, and at least understood that I was going to see a comedic opera by Mozart. After we were settled in at the table, Terry Harper (Director of Production) came around and introduced himself before taking us on our backstage tour. It was a treat to be able to go behind the curtain and see the sets up close. An amazing amount of detail is visible everywhere, from props to backdrops. We learned a few interesting bits as well, like the fact that the complete set – costumes and all – was rented from Alberta. We also learned sticky floors are preferred by the actors, and are achieved with a mop and mixture of Coca-Cola and water.

Backstage

So for those of you that are opera-unaware like me, there are a few things to know. First, don’t worry about not knowing the language the opera is performed in. Thanks to “surtitles“, which are displayed above the stage, an English interpretation lets you follow what’s going on. Second, while being up close to the performers is a treat, if you sit very close (as we were fortunate enough to do) the surtitles end up being miles above your head. It’s critical that you get very skilled very quickly at looking up, looking back at the stage, looking up, looking back at the stage. I’m sure this is secretly done to amuse the performers as they play ’spot the newbies’ when looking out at us.

While I normally would prefer sitting up close like this during a live concert, I would recommend sitting further back in this case. I think for those of us that haven’t been to an opera before, or haven’t been much, sitting back far enough to see both the entire stage and the surtitles at once without taking your eyes completely off the performance would be beneficial. Fight the urge to buy the best, and give the close seats to those that know the language or the opera well and can take it in seamlessly.

I was told The Marriage Of Figaro is a great “first opera” and I for one am glad I was initiated by it. It was very enjoyable from start to finish. The story was well written and well accompanied, but the best entertainment came from the performers themselves. All of the players were very skilled vocally, as expected, but they also seemed right at home doing physical comedy. It was a great combination overall, and the 3+ hour length went by surprisingly quickly. It was also great to see the Vancouver area so well represented, with many of the cast members hailing from the Lower Mainland (including the Count, Countess and Marcellina). I also noticed that the packed house was full of all ages – good to see the variety and the interest for opera being so high.

The night ended with an after-party behind the stage where we got to mix & mingle with the cast & crew. It gave us another opportunity to show our appreciation for a great night. Thanks again to Ling and John for this opportunity, and I’m sure that another opera is in my future. Madama Butterfly…let’s see… a Japanese tragedy by Puccini, performed in Italian with English surtitles. Sounds perfect.

Thanks to Peter for filling in and the guest post of his experience at the Opera. Also check out my previous post about my first time at the Opera – John

followed by the Motorola Milestone (aka Droid) running 2.0.1 version of Android:

I’ve made a few serious attempts at using these handsets as my primary phone for a few days here and there, followed by a few full weekends and while I was in Austin for SXSW, I used the Milestone full time for a week. For a diehard iPhone user like me, at first it was tough but I figured it was the only way to give these devices a true test. Austin was probably the best test since I had no choice but to use it since turning on my Rogers iPhone would have killed me thanks to their expensive roaming/data plans.

I have to say after giving them the ‘college’ try, I’m actually rather impressed. There are plenty of shortcomings when compared to my beloved iPhone but at the same time, a lot of positives that I wish the iPhone had. Like Homer Simpson designing his own car, I realize that a hybrid phone that incorporates the features of both types of devices would be a frankenphone but some of the differences are undeniably attractive.

Take for instance the Android notifications. While nothing new as I had similar notifications on my old Treo, but this implementation is quite possibly one of the biggest time savers and single most useful thing I noticed while using the Milestone daily. Without even having to touch the device, I can see via a single LED light that I have new email, a new mention/direct message on Twitter or both – possibly more types of notifications if I installed more apps. In contrast, on the iPhone, I’d have to unlock the phone, launch the applicable app in order to see if there is anything new (assuming you have inbox:zero and/or only one email account, this may not be as big of an issue). Even when using multiple email accounts though, the notifications keep me updated on which account has new mail. I liked being able to pull down the notifications tab and get a preview of the updates from within any app. I could then choose to got back to the app I was using or click on the appropriate notification and be taken to that app for the full story.

One thing that I thought was behind us is the useless error messages like this that tend to pop up while launching an app:

The iPhone has app related crashes as well, it just seems to handle things better than this – especially for less tech savy users. Either the app will work or it won’t…a simple reboot usually fixes things. On the Android devices, there were a few apps that I could never get running no matter what I tried. This could be due to a number of variables but I’m leaning towards blaming the issues on the fragmented Android Marketplace where there are lots of apps with little or no quality control not to mention confusing requirements for usage based on the handset, carrier and version of Android you happen to be running. I’m also pretty sure the fact that I tried a few of these apps from Canada (via two different carriers) also caused some strange behaviour.

Performance
The LG Eve was running Android version 1.5 and it seemed a little sluggish to me. The Milestone on the other hand, running 2.0.1 of Android, seemed just as fast or faster than my iPhone 3GS. Apps loaded quickly and using various internet related functions were very fast. I also think Telus’ network contributed to the spryness of the device since it was running at 3.5G speeds. Even in my notoriously bad living room where one end of my couch is typically a Rogers deadzone (the other end is fine), Telus gave me full bars throughout the room.

The Camera
The Milestone has, on paper, a better camera than the iPhone (5 vs 3 megapixels). It also has a flash and an autofocus lens. I’m a camera geek and was flat out frustrated by the camera on the Milestone. So much so that I stopped bothering to try to take a decent photo with it. It was slow, had brutal shutter lag and inconsistent flash performance. It had a number of scene modes for things like macro and portrait (like a point and shoot) but simply navigating these options was slow enough to ‘ruin the moment’. Often the photos I’d take would end up looking like webcam stills, complete with raster lines. The iPhone camera may be lesser appointed, but at least it works. I also tried a number of the 3rd party apps and was still disappointed.

Battery life
The Milestone appeared to be pretty comparable to my 3GS. I had pretty much everything turned on for both devices (GPS, notifications, etc) and both devices would last a typical day after my moderate usage.

Keyboards
Both of the Android devices I used had a slide out keyboard. I still find these to be useless to me. Both the Milestone and the Eve had solid keyboards but both took up a fair amount of space and using the keyboard was still just awkward no matter how much I tried to get used to them. I actually preferred the Milestone’s onscreen portrait keyboard with its type ahead spellchecker function that would display all the possible words as you were typing. Like the iPhones spellcheck function, the Android system had some interesting replacement words that weren’t what I was trying to type…but at least I could see it on screen (along with other spellings and suggested words) and click directly on the correct one. It’s pretty unobtrusive but I did find a few times that I typed a long passage and realized that I had been auto-corrected incorrectly a few words ago. Correcting these was more clunky as being able to target a specific letter in a word was often an exercise in frustration trying to tap on it but not so hard that the useless context menu would pop up.

Form factor
I really liked the size/shape of the LG Eve…even with the unneeded keyboard, it was comfortable in my hand and slightly more comfortable than the iPhone. The Milestone on the otherhand, is bigger, thicker and heavier than the others. It’s also quite boxy. It’s not very comfortable in the hand due to its odd placement of the micro usb port and square lines. This is really too bad because it is a stunning device to look at, it’s just not great to hold onto for long periods of time. I’ve (briefly) played with a Google Nexus One and it seems to hit the sweet spot in Android land as far as form factor goes.

Conclusion
So like I said at the beginning of this post, I am impressed with what Google has done with Android, even more than I was expecting to be. There are still a number of rough edges but it has come a far ways in even the last couple of iterations. First time smartphone buyers owe it to themselves to at least check out devices like the Milestone before deciding on the iPhone.

Tonight I updated the Milestone to version 2.1 of Android and will be exploring those changes soon. Its also been interesting to see what the different manufacturers have done with their handsets running Android. Unlike Apple, there are a number of different form factors for people to choose from so while none have won me over like the iPhone, at least there are options out there that will only get better in time.

Unfortunately, Canada still gets the shaft as far as the delayed timing of the handset and firmware releases (and even the device names across the border) but perhaps that will change with the advent of Google selling the Nexus One handset directly (and factory unlocked) – others like Motorola and LG will hopefully follow suit. Nokia has been selling unlocked handsets directly for awhile now so it’s a trend I hope grows.

I’m also glad that Android is truly becoming a competitor for Apple…competition is great and only makes these devices better for consumers.

Makeup by Alecia Repp
Hair by Aaron Brousseau
Models: Claire & Barbara

Here’s a behind the scenes timelapse video that I put together of the process everyone went through:

I shot a LOT of photos for such a compressed period of time…it made it hard to narrow down my favorites so I uploaded one of the largest batches of photos from a single photoshoot. You can view the whole set on Flickr including a bunch of behind the scenes photos.