Apps

Lately I've been on a tear talking about some of the Android apps that I like. I decided that I should publish a list of the apps on my Android phone. Hopefully this will be useful to the two people that subscribe to my feed.

1. Utilities
   
   • Lookout: Free (at least for now) mobile security app. See my previous review.
     
   • EStrongs File Explorer: No self respecting Android user should be without a file manager. EStrongs has a good feature set and a better price...free. I liked this better than Linda File Manager.
   
   
   • Advanced Task Killer: Yeah, yeah, I get it - Android has a built in task killer and you really don't/shouldn't need one. I like this freebie better than Androids built in flavor because of features like auto-kill and ignore.
   
   
   • Network(Philipp Mangelow): This is just a shortcut to RadioInfo in com.android.settings. Not for everyone.
   
   
   • Speed Test: A good free app to test internet speeds. I used it to test 4G speeds in my area.
   
   
   • Dropbox: Free, cloud based app that lets you sync, store, and share files between your phone and desktop.This is one of my favorites.
   
   
   • Evernote: Free cloud based note management system. The app has a great UI and is useful for snapping images from whiteboard sessions and adding notes. The images are in a TIFF format, so text within the image should be searchable if any text can be recognized. I use this for snapping pictures of and storing business cards.
     
2. Media
   
   • Rhapsody: I had Rhapsody-o-Go account before I purchased my EVO. When I purchased this phone, I had visions of ditching my PMP and transferring my Rhapsody library to my phone. That chuckling in the background is coming from everyone who has realized how lackluster Rhapsody is on Android. With no offline playback (yet) and mediocre performance, I'm holding on for this to live up to what it could be. I'm glad that the app is free.
   • Shazam: Free app that lets you tag up to 5 songs/month. What's "tagging" you ask? Simply open the app and hit the big black "Shazam" button. The app "listens" to the song, save it to your history, and allows you to share the information with friends or even purchase the song immediately. Pretty cool. Paid versions remove the tagging limit. As a music guy, I rarely use this, but it's totally clutch when you want to find out the name of the cool song that just came on.
   • Pandora Radio: Free streaming app that lets you build personalized playlists simple by entering the track or Artist. I like this better than Rhapsody's station streaming.
   • Adobe Photoshop Express: Free app that lets you edit and share photos. You can crop, rotate, add basic effects, and adjust color. I'm certainly not a power user, but it offers everything that I need when using my phone to take pictures.
   • nook: The Barnes and Noble app that takes the e-reader to the phone. Supports app to SD since the books can take up a few mb. I also sync's with the desktop version. The page turning animations are every bit as nice as what you see on that other phone.
3. Social Networking/Chat
   
   • Twitter: Official Android Twitter app. Better than HTC's version.
   li>Facebook: Official Android FB app. Again, it's better than HTC's version.
   • Foursquare: Official Foursquare app for Android. This location based cross between Facebook and Twitter is seriously addictive.
   • Blogger-droid: Free app that lets you post to your Blogger account from your phone. You can view, edit, and delete posts as well as share pictures, videos, links, etc. And yes, I have posted from my phone before.
   • AIM: AOL's venerable AIM on Android. Just like the desktop version, this gives you access to Facebook chat.
   • Yahoo: Official Android Yahoo app. This probably has the best UI out of all of my apps. I keep waiting for the video chat...a la Skype.
   • gtalk: El Goog's chat app.
   • Fring: I use this for video conferencing. Not the best, but until Yahoo or Skype gets video-chat for Android, this is my go-to app.
   • Qik: Seriously, push to talk on a video-chat app???FAIL. If I could only remove this crapware that Sprint bundled with the phone. Oh wait, you can...root.

Almost half way...must..stay..focused...

4. Social Planning
   
   • Open Spot: Free Google app that lets users find/share real-time information about available on-street parking spots. It's not quite there yet, since it really gets better the more people use it. It will continue to get better as the user base grows.
   • Places: El Goog's answer to Yelp! and Where. I like that El Goog's send QR code stickers to businesses registered with Places. And really, who doesn't need an excuse to bust out the scanner app. Of course this is free.
   • urbanspoon: Free location based app that helps locate nearby restaurants, with prices and reviews. Shake until you find a place you'd like to eat. Bonus - integrates with Google Maps.
   • Fandango: Free app that lets you purchase movie tickets from the comfort of your phone.
   • OnMyWay: Free app that sends messages to selected contacts with an ETA. Requires that GPS be turned on.I haven't used this too much, but it's got potential. On the downside, GPS is a battery hog.
   • cab4me: A free location based app that let you locate and call nearby car services. Pretty good, but it was missing a few cab companies nearby.
5. Shopping/Finance
   
   • Square: See my previous review.
   • Paypal: Free app to send money and manage your Paypal account. I love that they added the "bump" feature that lets you transfer money by bumping phones together.
   • Shopsavvy: Free Android bar scanning application. Recognizes standard bar codes as well as QR codes. You can see examples of QR codes in previous app reviews. Scanned items will return local and web based prices.
6. The Rest
   
   • Swype: You can't really get this on Android unless it's pre-loaded by your carrier or hardware manufacturer, but I was lucky enough to get in on the beta. It's a free keyboard that let's you trace words on a keyboard and recognizes words by the shape that is traces. Also allows for standard input. It is amazing how fast you can type with this. Swiftkey is a good paid alternative.
   • Chrome to Phone: An app from El Goog that works in conjunction with an extension for the Chrome desktop browser that lets you push your desktop browsing session directly to your phone. Awesome. I use it to push a recipe from the web to my phone which is a bit easier to use in the kitchen than a laptop.

Thanks for sticking it out, I hope this list is helpful!

App Review

Geez. Either I've been living under a rock or I don't know where to look for good Android apps. I've recently discovered a few great ones like Square. Recently, I've had a chance to check out one more that I like.

The first is Lookout Mobile Security. QR code here. With the advent of the recent superphones from Apple, HTC, and Motorola (amongst other) we are starting to do many of our daily activities on our phone. With all of the apps and recent mobile security issues (here and here), security solutions are looking like more of a requirement than a nice to have feature.

A thorough video from www.droid-life.com can be found below. With a clean interface, it allows you to scan for malicious software and uninstall if it finds anything. It also allows for backup of contacts, call history, and pictures. I have to say that my favorite feature is the "locate" feature. Provided that your location services (GPS) are enabled, you can log onto the Lookout portal and locate your phone. You can even cause it to "scream", although I wouldn't recommend it as it is quite loud and annoying (as it should be).

The one area that needs improvement is the remote lock/wipe. This feature has been teased for quite some time now on Android. Given the price of this app (free), I can't find too much fault with that. However, it will be interesting to see if this is added with the premium product that they have also been teasing. Depending on your needs, the free version may fit the bill. All in all a solid useful app.

Review from www.droid-life.com

The Social Newtwork

I just went to the the new movie "The Social Network". It's the David Fincher/Alan Sorkin pairing based on the book "The Accidental Billionaires" by Ben Mezrich.

The movie was well acted, and did a pretty good job paying homage to the techie crowd, dropping terms like wget as well as references to perl scripts and mysql.

I haven't read the book (I have it on my nook), but I can say tat the general outline of the story paints a less than flattering picture of Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg. Whether or not the story played out as it appears in the movie may never be known. As for the characters themselves, I'm sure some artistic license was taken.

At the end, I'm not quite sure whether I like Mark Zuckerbergs character or feel sorry for him. Obviously, there is some truth to the story regarding the lawsuits et cetera, but I find it hard to believe that anyone is truly that removed from the rest of the world. My wife and I both gave this movie two thumbs up!

Casting : A

Plotline: A-

Dialogue: A

Update: Apparently Facebook took their staff to see the movie too. Story here.

Square Up - Review

While perusing the interweb, I came across a great article article about a mobile app. Every once in awhile, I see an idea and say to myself "Damn, if only I would have thought of that". This was one of those times.

The company is called Square.

The app (QR code here)? Well, it allows you to take credit card payments on your smartphone.

I tested it on the Android platform using my HTC EVO. It has a clean interface and is extremely simple to use. I was able to process a $10.00 payment to myself within minutes of registering for the service. Within seconds, I received two e-mails. The first was an e-mail noting that I had accepted a payment of $10.00 to my account. The second was my receipt. It's that simple. Really.

The registration process itself is straight forward. You'll need to provide some pertinent identifying information including a routing number. Once set-up, there are some things that you should know:

• They limit deposits made to your account to $1000/week. Anything above that will be deposited within 30 days (it is reviewed to help prevent fraud). Providing more information up front and continued use can raise that limit.
• There is a higher fee for taking a payment without swiping the card through the reader. The reader is free when you register for the service, but until it arrives, you'll be manually entering transactions.
• They charge a percentage of the total, plus a $0.15 fee per transaction. It's 2.5% for transactions processed with the reader and 3.5% for transactions processed without the reader. There is no monthly charge and no equipment charge.

It makes it so easy to easy to accept card payments, that you never really need to think about it. You can take credit card payments at a bake sale if you feel the urge. You can even track cash payments and download them as a .csv to import into other software. Plus, it's pretty fun to scribble your name on your phone.

This really is my new favorite app.

Square Up
App
QR Code

IE9 - Review

I was suring around that darned interweb on my beloved Chrome browser, when I thought I might give IE9 a try. After all, this was the new IE9 that has been optimized for HTML5, CSS3, and hardware acceleration, right?

The basics that IE9 gets right:

• UI:
  
  • Finally. Microsoft is getting with the program. The IE9 UI is lean and mean - a la Chrome or Firefox. I know this isn't some revolutionary advance in UI design, but it's still nice to see.
  • One of several cues borrowed from other browsers is that that address bar now does double duty for search and address.
• Speed Demon:
  
  • IE9 still scores slower than Chrome, Opera, and Safari on the benchmarks, but not by much. We're talking about 100 milliseconds behind the #1, Chrome. The days of using sluggish performance as an excuse not to use IE are over. Firefox and Chrome are baking in hardware acceleration into the next versions, so that gap may widen again. But for now, 110 ms isn't enough to make me look past IE9 as a candidate for my everyday browser.
  • Add in Management - IE9 has an add-in manager that includes such information as the estimated time each add-in addsto the start time of the browser. And yes MS add-ins are listed.
• Tab Management:
  
  • When you have more than one active tab, if you select the top-right "X" button for the browser, IE9 actually asks if you would prefer to close the current active tab, or close all tabs. Nice, right?
  • Also, taking a page from Chrome IE9 has the ability to easily pull off a tab into it's own browser session. I found myself doing this a lot when I wanted to compare tabs side by side using the "snap" feature.
  • Another feature "borrowed" from Chrome - When opening a new tab, recently visited sites appear. Additionally, the frequency of visits to the sight are represented by a volume bar. The longer the bar, the more visits to that url.
• Pinning url's from a Tab to the Taskbar:
  
  • I've always been a fan of the taskbar in Windows 7. It may not look as cool as the dock on Mac's, but I find it to be every bit as functional and a bit less cluttered. This is a matter of taste though.
    
  • Another neat trick when pinning to the taskbar is that the icon on the taskbar is "branded" like the site. When opened, the browser gets "branded" with the sites colors, including the forward and back buttons. This is not something that changes the game, but in a day and age where more and more websites are becoming like applications, it is nice to know that Redmond appears to be paying to both the big and small details.
    
  • One other unique possibility is the fact that the pinned sited can take advantage of Windows 7 "Jumplist" feature. That holds promise for such features as baking in right-click navigation into a site pinned to the taskbar. Hopefully this won't go the way of "slices".
  
  
  

Overall, IE9 represents a huge leap forward for Microsoft. They have addressed many of the issues with IE that have prompted so many users to switch browsers. It will be interesting to see how (read:if) this integrates with Windows Phone 7. Will they integrate such features as "IE9 to phone" like Google with their Chrome to Phone? Hint hint: Both would be awesome. Microsoft has shown that they can listen to feedback and has created some great products recently (Kin debacle aside). Let's hope they continue this trend. In the meantime, I'm going to keep IE9 on my laptop.

Fanboys

A friend's recent post on Facebook asking for feedback on whether to switch to "The Now network" highlighted on of my pet peeves: fanboy's.

A post by one person who had the EVO led to a debate between an Apple fanboy and an Android supporter. I'm not going to state the obvious, but I think you know where I would fall in this debate.

The thing that irks me so much about this is the fact that no matter how good Android gets, Apple fanboy's will always have on the blinders. At the end of the day, there is room for both OS's. Even webOS and WP7 can (and hopefully will) join the party. The worst part is that the Apple fanboy is in IT. Crazy, right?

I may prefer the open nature of Android to the vice grip of control that Apple keeps on it's products, but I think the more at this party, the merrier. Not only does it serve as an incubator for innovation, but it also benefits all of us.

From 120PSEye

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.8

The Wonders of Modern Technology

How great is this? I've managed to pull down an app from the Android market that allows you to post to your Blogger account from the comfort of your Swype enabled Android superphone.
All kidding aside, it is pretty amazing that you can now do just about anything that can be done on the traditional mobile platforms from your phone. Prior to purchasing my Android device, I had a Web OS device. It's easy to see why iphone users were such gadget snobs.
Now that I've gone droid, I'm not sure that I'll ever go back. Not only do I no longer have iphone envy, I can actually do everything an iphone can do. And all that without having to deal with being oppressed by "the man".
And with Google's Android eco-system growing at the rate of one new superphone per month, it's no wonder Mr.Jobs has not been himself lately. The only downside to all of this fantastic innovation is that my wonderful new toy will be obsolete within the next 6 months. That being said, we are all winners, since the competition and innovation trend to trickle down. Viva la revolution!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.5

EVO: Update

OK.

I was on the fence.

I loved the hardware, but I was torn over the UI.

What a difference a few days make. I still miss Synergy, cards, and the overall intuitive nature of WebOS, but HTC's Sense along with Android are growing on me every day.

Leap has now become second nature, and while it may not be as intuitive as WebOS's cards, there is no functionality missing.

As I was sitting at the hotel bar last night, I struck up a conversation with a Pre owner. We swapped phones and played around for a few minutes. The end result is that Sense/Android is for the most part a wash with WebOS. I still have to say that I miss swipe to delete though.

The lack of a physical keyboard was a worry of mine, but I've made the transition pretty well. Adding Swype as an app has certainly not hurt. Find it here. It has allowed me to type faster than I ever thought possible from a mobile platform.

I was also able to get a 4g connection while I was at the hotel outside of Boston. All I can say is "Wow". I was able to watch YouTube effortlessly. It loaded without buffering, streamed flawlessly, and was a high quality crisp picture.

Overall, I'm giving it an A-. It's a powerful, customizable platform that compromises in very few (if any) areas.

I'd like to see some better apps, but who wouldn't? It's truly a viable competitor to the 4th gen iphone, and offers more to the open source crowd (I am root).

I'll be pulling down the SDK soon and playing around to see what all of the buzz is about.

EVO 4G

Alright.

I waited for it for months.

I've had it for a weekend.

I'm up in the air.

While this is the most hyped phone that I've ever seen (maybe even deservedly so), there are still some areas where this android uberphone falls short.

Hits:

1. Hardware - This phone is so ridiculously spec'd, I'm not even going to go into it. Spec check here.

2. Screen - relatively speaking, this is a great screen. Like going from CRT to LCD. I hope the rumors of screen glass separation aren't true.

3. HTC's "leap" feature. I can think of a few things that I miss on an Android phone coming from WebOS on a Pre, but "leap" is pretty cool.

4. Android - This OS is young but hungry. It's got fantastic potential to be a serious rival to the control freaks in Cuppertino.

5. Google Apps - Shopper, Sky, Maps, Voice.... nuff said.

Misses:

1. Battery life - If this were a car - think of it like a Ferrari 430 Scuderia. Gorgeous, but thirsty.

2. Android - Missing some of the polish of Apple's OS and WebOS.

3. Some HTC and/or Android apps - Definitely some crapware. LinkeIN is a prime example. Yes it's a beta. But users can't even log in to the beta on the EVO.

4. Flash lite - not even going to comment. At some point Android will offer full flash support. Just not yet :-(

OK, the hardware is great. I mean please, my phone has a kickstand. Does yours?

And Android is a great jumping point for a phone OS. Their app store is much richer that the measly 2500 or so apps on WebOS. And the Google apps have much better integration (like Google Voice).

But there is just no mistaking that the Android UI is not as polished as some others like iphone and WebOS. That's why I'm on the fence. I miss things like Synergy, swipe to delete, video trimming, the cards, and WebOS notifications.

I also miss a few apps like LinkedIN (the beta sucks on Android - at least for the EVO), FlightTracker (free), and PocketMirror for Outlook.

Yes - FlightTracker is paid, PocketMirror could easily be replaced by Mark Sync (or HTC sync if you don't mine not getting task and to-do lists), and there is a LinkedIn app in progress.

I miss that the messaging app doesn't offer the option to message from within your IM accounts like webOS. But Meebo handles that pretty well.

Basically the difference between my Pre and the EVO is UI polish. There's no dout that hardware wise, the EVO is twice the phone that the Pre is. And while the app store doesn't quite match the quantity and overall quality associated with the Apple app store, there's no reason that this relatively new OS couldn't catch up.

I know I keep harping on webOS, but they were pretty polished out of the gate as far as the user experience was concerned. HTC skinned Android with Sense, so they also need to shoulder some of this burden, but Google does as well. I have zero doubt that Android will get there with the polish, and that at some point they will tighten the reigns on the app submissions, bringing up the overall quality of the apps for the platform.

Sprint and HTC have put together a great looking and sexy piece of hardware, now Sprint really needs to get that 4G network rolled out to more that the 23 current markets so that I can video chat with my friends!

Disclaimer:

On a phone this beastly, a weekend is by no means enough time to get acquainted with all of the functionality. I've been following @androidtips and @androidapostle on twitter to help familiarize myself with all Android has to offer. As I get further in, I will post and update with more info. If you would like to follow me, follow @shmilsky.

Nook :(

Remember how much I said that I loved my new nook e-reader? I still do. What I do not love, however, is the crack that developed on the left page forward button after 45 days. This is a known "defect". And by defect I mean short-sightedness on behalf of the design team. The issue is that the plastic compound used for the bezel is too brittle. I read 6-7 books in 45 days. That's not really great. Check here to see some stories related to this.

The most frustrating part of this whole experience has been dealing with B&N's "trusted partner", Best Buy. I went to exchange the device and was told by several different managers at Best Buy that they would not accept the return, even though it was a known manufacturers defect. How this information was not communicated to Best Buy is beyond me. After dealing with horrible managers at the Best Buy stores in Far Rockaway (Jason), Baldwin (forgot name), 3 reps at B&N, and 4 reps at Best Buy corporate, my wife finally reached Dave at B&N. Dave is a supervisor in the Digital Support area.

I think I'm going to give Dave his own paragraph. he deserves it. Whereas every other conversation with B&N had yielded no results, Dave actually offered to call the Best Buy branch where my nook was purchased. He told us that he was surprised that they were unaware of the issue and that he would do what he could to straighten out the issue (way to go Dave..). After calling the Best Buy where my nook was purchased, Dave told us we were all set to go and return the nook for a replacement. We then spoke with Leon at Best Buy in Baldwin, who assured us that we would be taken care of. After confirming who the manager the following day would be, Leon called us back and told us that if we had any problems whatsoever, to come back to see him directly.

Dave at B&N and Leon at the Best Buy Baldwin, are in my customer service hall of fame. The issue is resolved and my wife is exchanging my nook.

Pretty much everyone else at both Best Buy and B&N that we dealt with are in the hall of shame.

I should give an honorable mention to Shaddell in Far Rockaway. He was a ghetto Queen, but his customer service skills definitely warrant an honorable mention in the customer service hall of fame.

Epilogue:

The folks at B&N assured me that the issue has been resolved with the cracking. I'm guessing that a different compound is being used for the bezel. Maybe nook 2.0 will have actual buttons a la Kindle. The easiest way to avoid potential issue would be to use the swipe gesture for page turns.

Really, I'm just glad this was resolved. Overall, I love my nook, and next time will likely purchase the coverage plan for anything I get at Best Buy. One thing that I should note is that customers who purchased their nook directly through B&N have noted a much easier time getting this issue resolved.

nook

OK.

Maybe you saw how sad I was over the bike. I decided that a little bit of retail therapy was in order. So I decided to combine this retail therapy with my love for gadgets and being green.

I read.A lot.

I can read a paperback cover to cover over the course of a domestic flight. Yes, I have done this. So I figured that I would look into e-readers.

Why not?

The idea of 1500 books in a form factor that is similar to a book is appealing. But few current offerings have some of the things that I am looking for.

Browser?

Spring Design's Alex or the ipad would both have browsers. While the ipad is beautiful, and the e-reader animation is stunning, the glare and backlighting don't do it for me. If it could truly replace my laptop, I might reconsider. And I'm generally a Windows kind of guy, so for me to say that is a credit to the ipad. But it can't replace my laptop, so scratch getting an ipad for now (maybe in the 2nd or 3rd generation).

So that leaves me with an e-reader.

Kindle? Nah. I've seen them, and they seem good, but I'm looking for a little bit more.

Spring Design Alex? Sounds great on paper with a robust browser, a decent form factor, with a secondary color screen on the bottom half. It's a shame that there was such a tough time getting one. With delayed delivery dates and the ordering site pulling aHoudini move, I really felt that it narrowed my choices to two.

Sony and Nook.

I had a chance to play with the Sony. It's not bad, it's just not for me.

Enter the nook. Browser? Check (to be fair, it's a beta and needs some work). A secondary touch screen? Check (yes it's small - the Alex' screen is much bigger). Open source OS? Double check!

I like the fact that the nook runs Android. It leaves a lot of room for growth, whether it's games or an app store. Adding google's touch based search feature (when development is done) would be nice. Hint Hint. The nook also supported more formats, at least at the time I did my research. *Update* - all tied up on this front.

I find the form factor a little bit more elegant on the nook. I didn't like the keyboard on the Kindle. However, as a Pre owner, it was a form factor that I was comfortable with. And the touchscreen keyboard on the nook is easy for me to fat-finger with my sausage like hands. With a little bit of practice, I was able to enter my WPA passkey with no problems.
While we are talking about passkeys, I was unable to connect to the wi-fi hotspot on the train. I know that this requires some combination of using the browser and UI, but I just haven't mastered it yet. *Update* - I managed to connect on the train, however I am now unable to connect in the hotel lobby. B&N needs to work on that for the next release.

Speaking of the UI, it definitely takes some getting used to. I think that it makes sense, but then again, I think putting olive oil and sea salt on ice cream makes sense. The UI certainly isn't intuitive. Then again, I am by no means a UI design expert.

Once getting wi-fi up and initially connecting to my laptop, I was able to sync my adobe digital editions library with the nook straight away. I was also able to go to my public library website and pull down a few e-books and audio books to take for my trip this week. The audio books required the Overdrive Media console.

I've already ripped through the first book that I downloaded last night. reading on the e-ink display is eerily reminiscent of paperbacks. And swiping across the bottom screen turns the page. No, it's not like reading a real book. Nor is it as beautiful as the page turning animation of the ipad. A lot has been made of the sluggish performance of the nook. I installed the update for 1.3, and most issues seem to be resolved. Plus they added sodoku. Here's a link to all of the things included in release 1.3.

Given the wi-fi connectivity, free 3G, and performance improvements, I'll give the nook a B+/A-. Room for improvement, but a very solid offering.

Sadness disguised as a receipt

"Damn. I knew I should have done it sooner. "

This was the exact thought that ran through my mind when I received a call from the LBS that the order that I had placed for a Giant Defy Advanced 1 couldn't be completed.

Me:"Seriously?"

Bike shop Guy:"Yeah, there's 5, size small, between the East and West coasts. All spoken for."

"I can get you on a Roubaix Expert or Madone."

Me:"I'll be in on Sunday to test ride those two. Thanks"

The fact of the matter is that I wasn't going to go test ride anything. I had made up my mind that this was the bike that I had wanted for the past year and a half. After all, my road bike and two mountain bike were all Giant. Not that I'm a one brand kind of guy. Not that these other bikes aren't great bikes. But the Defy had gotten great reviews, looked great, and in general delivered on Giant's reputation of offering a terrific bang for your buck.

At roughly $3500 including taxes, bang for your buck is a relative term when talking about a bicycle. But you can hardly argue the specs. Full Ultegra 6700, Mavic Ksyrium elite hoops, and that gorgeous full carbon frame. The reviews had confirmed it over and over.

And to Giant's credit, they tried very hard to get me on a bike. I could get a frameset and swap out my current Ultegra 6600 out onto the frame. Too bad I'm looking to go from a triple on my current ride to a double on the new ride. They were willing to knock quite a bit off of the Defy 0. This was very tempting, but not realistic.

I ride enough to justify a nice mid-level bike. No more and no less. I know you're thinking that $3500 doesn't sound like a mid level bike, but if you shop around enough, you'll see what I mean. The Defy 0 goes for about $5800 with taxes. 6 grand. 6 Large.

That's a lot of lattes. And while I can afford it (and am truly lucky to have that luxury), I'd like to consider myself somewhat practical. I am what most serious bikers call a "lard ass". At right around 200lbs, I do not have a resting heart rate of 48. Shaving ounces does nothing for me. I do ride over 100 miles on a weekend all summer long, weather permitting. I also do 6-8 centuries a year. Along with some other reasons too boring to get into, this would have been a perfect ride.

If I could get one.

The moral of this cautionary tale? Don't wait.

Whether it's buying a bike or anything that you want to do, do it today, because the opportunity might not present itself again for a while.

Gratitude

Yes, it's really been that long. I've been traveling quite a bit for work...18 months on a weekly basis to be exact. And while this hasn't really allowed me time to ride as much, I have had some time to reflect. Given the general state of affairs in the world today, I am grateful. What am I grateful for? I'm grateful for my bike. I know that seems like a trivial thing to say. But I'm grateful that something that I love to do as much as I love riding a bike allows me to make an impact in the world.
If you go to my website, sethmillman.com you can see information for two charities. While these are the two charities that I choose to support, there are many rides that support fantastic causes. The gratitude doesn't necessarily comes from a particular charity, it comes from the ride and the charity. There is something special about being with a group of people, together, doing something you love for a good cause, and leaving it all out on the road.
So while there is enough bad news these day to make even the sunniest of dispositions consider Prozac, I wake up every day and look at the weather. Every degree closer it gets to riding weather makes me that much happier. It doesn't matter how bad work is on a particular day, or how bad the news is, we're another day closer to ride season. And for that, I am truly grateful.