Today being thanksgiving day, I had some spare time to play around some of the new things Microsoft brought to the world this year...

I read about popfly during the summer and I always wanted to develop something using it... this is now done :)

The idea is:
-> Upload my GPS position from my phone to my website
-> Have a Popfly block retreive the data and feed it to a Virtual Earth block
-> Create a mash up of those two blocks and embed it on my website.

I think the result is pretty sweet:

Two comments though...
Too bad the mashups are written in Javascript... I'd rather write them in C#...
Debugging the blocks is kind of a pain but with a bit of time, and a lot of console output, it's manageable...

Last note, the position is not ultra accurate. I did this on purpose ;) The decimal part of the coordinates is rounded :)

Call me a fan boy if you wish... but yes, I picked up a 4GB Zune yesterday at Frys in Sunnyvale, California.

Here's my totally unbiased opinion :-) Bear in mind I've been a shameful owner of an IPod Nano for a little less than a year... This post will contain scattered comparisons with the IPod as the Zune 2 is a response from Microsoft to the Apple player...

Here we go.

Ever since it was announced, I wanted to get the Zune2 for two reasons.

• I had never been a big fan of either the ipod of itunes... Being an ipod owner was creating an internal disagreament in my brain... this had to be fixed :-)
• Zune Marketplace has this new "All you can listen" subscription. $15 and you have unlimited acces to the entire zune collection for up to 3 computers/zunes as long as you keep your subscription alive.

I've got to say, after using it for a bit, I'm quite impressed!

The device

It very light, nicely built and seems pretty robust. Screen is made of glass and not some scratchy piece of plastic.
The QVGA display is simply amazing! 320x240 on such a small screen is just plain greatness! The videos are sharp, CD-Covers look awesome and the UI is very nicely antialiased.

One of the things I genuinely could not stand with the IPod nano was the over sensitive and over hyped turn wheel thingy... It just never freaking did what I wanted and was always going one item to far in either direction.
The Zune also has a touch pad, which is a tad too sensitive as well... But on the contrary to the ipod wheel, the ZunePad works with horizontal and vertical motion, which makes much more sense to me since the UI is UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT based. No need to figure out which way to scroll to go up or down.

Two good points I give to the Zune:

• The pad actually has UP/DOWN 'BUTTON'. Unlike the ipod which maps "UP" to previous menu and down to play. Duh! Who came up with this?
• The ZunePad is raised above the surface of the device, which makes it easy to switch songs without looking at the device (in a pocket for example.)

That second point was a source of constant bitching for me with the old nano... I could never find that damn left/right button as the wheel was blended with the surface of the device, and I ended up pressing randomly all over the player... And I'm sorry Apple fans, whatever you say, this is lame!

Zune Application

I was a little scared when I downloaded the app... I was expecting a confusing, bloated application... but it was the entire contrary!
This has got to be one of the best designed apps I've ever used. Clean design, nice colors, intuitive UI element locations, clear help, no confusing options with unnamed icons ala itunes, menu transitions are beautiful, all smoothed out with fade in/out effects...

I have been using itunes for about a year now, and I never really liked it for many little reasons (impossibility to remove duplicates (without third party tool), DRM'ed music that I could not copy on my WM6 device, cold gray UI, first click in the UI when coming from another application had no effect...) The sync was confusing as hell, sometimes it just wouldn't have synced my stuff automatically even though the device had been connected for a night...

I have used the Zune application for about a day now, and no major things bugged me so far. The Wifi sync worked great, podcast downloaded with no problem...
I especially like the fullscreen mode of the app. Kinda looks like a nice screen background.

Zune Marketplace

This is one of the main reasons I mentioned above as to why I made the Switch.
The Zune Marketplace offers an unlimited subscription for $15 a month. You can access any music, download or direct streaming, as long as you are current with your subscription.
I have downloaded about 20 albums so far, for which itunes would have charged me $240... 20 Albums, for only $15…
This was really something I had been waiting on for a long time!

Creating the account was easy, and downloading music was even easier, just go in Marketplace in Zune and click on download for anything you like! So sync it with the Zune device, either right click and select Sync, or drag and drop the album on the Zune icon.
It feels like using one of those P2P applications, only difference is this is legal!
I setup the account for my work computer and here at home.

I also did my first Podcast subscription to Diggnation. Watched the latest episode, pretty sweet feature. Let’s hope the auto update/sync feature works well.

Final Thoughts

I do not regret my early buyer, slightly fanboy'ish decision. The device is great, no complaints so far and I am more than happy with the unlimited ZunePass. The Zune application is beyond what I would have expected!

Pandora, and Zune Marketplace will be my perfect combo from now on. Pandora for discovering music in a radio broadcast style, and Marketplace to get the music I like!

Last sunday, Ismael invited me for a ride in a Cirrus SR22 G2... I was so excited to finally get a chance to fly in such an airplane! I flew with him in a C172-G1000 last year and I really enjoyed it... but this time... it was really taking it to the next level! That airplane is just awesome, lots of power, not so noisy, really confortable, and packed with cool avionics.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to seat in the front, but hoppefully, next time...
Wink wink Ismael ;-)

I forgot my real camera for this flight, but I my friend, the HTC TyTN2 stepped up and allowed GPS Tracking and Photo/Video taking at the same time! Here is a slideshow of the pictures I took during the flight.

I also wanted to talk about Everytrail.
About 8 months ago, Ismael introduced me to Joost, the owner of Everytrail. Everytrail is a website where people can share their GPS tracks and automatically geotag their pictures on a map!

I used it to create the map below, containing the flight track and the pictures at the exact locations they were taken.

If you don't know about this website you might want to give it a visit!

Bay tour - Cirrus SR22 at EveryTrail
Map created by EveryTrail: GPS, Photos & Geotagging!

Last week end at the Flying Club, one of the instructors had this amazing little toy... A small remote controlled helicopter that was able to hover, and fly around in a room. It was so awesome, and so cheap ($25-$30), I had to buy my own!

After the flight, Julie and I headed directly to Fry's to purchase one of those helicopters. They had a small one for just under $25, a bargain!

Once the initial disapointment, mainly due to my total inability to make this damn thing fly, I started to really enjoy it... It can fly around in a room, hover for a bit... It takes a little while to get used to how it responds to your inputs, but once you get it, it's quite easy :)

The good thing is that since it's so light, you can literally smash it into anything, it'll not break! Unlike those real $100+ helicopters...

The remoting part is done via IR, which makes it a little difficult to work in plain daylight... Also, the protocol is based on discreet inputs, so whenever the helicopter receives a signal, it continues with whatever it last received... which means that if you play outside at night, and that the aircraft gets out of range... it'll keep going... heading straight to that rooftop... Not that it ever happened to me ;-)... I'm just saying :)

So overall, great little toy for a few minutes of fun... Nice to feel like a kid again :)

Spending about 0.57% of my time every year up in the air flying, I always thought I had less chances of being on the ground when the next earthquake would have happened in the Silicon Valley... Well, there was an earthquake yesterday, and unfortunately, it happened in the 99.43 remaining percent... That's too bad...

I was getting out of the bathroom, when I heard a rumbling... Our bathroom is right above a garage that has an automatic door... and that rumbling sound plus the vibration seemed familiar at first... I figured, hey, the neighbours are coming home... but then, a second later, the rumbling and vibration increased to a point that was becoming very frightening... the point where it got me thinking that either the garage door was seriously failing, or… well, no, it couldn’t be… a second elapsed… vibration increased so much that I completely ruled out the garage door option… I yelled to Julie who was in the kitchen "Tremblement de terre!!!", stormed out of the bedroom and out of the apartment!!!
I don't remember what went through my brain for these few seconds... I have a vague recollection of myself jumping over the bed at the speed of light and grabbing my shoes while telling Julie to get the hell out of here!
I think the trembling stopped when we were running down the stairs... I have no idea how long it lasted though...

We stayed a few minutes outside... before coming back in, checking out on the USGS website the magnitude... 5.6 on the Richer Scale, that's quite high...

I had thought of that since I came here, but I never thought I would have been as shocked as I felt... This is a really scary experience...

I had some trouble sleeping the night after that... Couldn't keep the sensation of the ground moving underneath me out of my mind....

I spoke with Kitti, a friend of mine working in Japan... He told me he didn't even remember the biggest one he felt, and that he didn't really care anymore when earthquakes happened...

I'm glad it was not stronger than that... and I sincerely hope that there will never be a next time, or if it happens, I'll be a few thousand feet above the ground enjoying a nice airplane ride with Julie!