Blackberry Playbook

I ordered my Playbook through Walmart on Thursday November 17 at 7:40 am. I wanted to buy one only since Monday when I went to Bestbuy to check out the models available. My co-worker told me about a huge promotion on these Playbooks and I knew I had to buy one (I was ready to buy a new/used one from kijiji at the time). Lucky for me Walmart was accepting orders (online) for the 32 GB and 64 GB models. I picked up the 64 GB one.

Why Playbook?

Summary:
- style (My preferences: matted finish, basic/elegant style, 7" screensize so that the device is portable)
- functionality (Full multitasking, but will it provide all functionality I expect?)
- UI (I discovered that the Playbook doesn't have a home button! Hey, that's cool!)

Style. iPads are beautifully designed. Blackberry's are designed with different tastes in mind. Blackberry's are designed by engineers (for an audience that has tastes that are more mechanically inclined), iPads are designed with the creative professionals in mind. I prefer an elegant device to "use" not to "admire". That is why paying the premium for the iPad/iPhone, etc. is counter to my nature.

Functionality. Ideally all these devices are the same. Yet they are not. So far, I've owned the Blackberry for 2 days and for 2 days I have encountered a number of issues with the device that are easily found in the user forums for the device. Here I'm disappointed. Of course I didn't do a full comparison and I knew that I was taking a chance but ... style trumped functionality. So below I'll highlight some of the experiences I have had with the Playbook so far.

UI. At first sight I didn't know how to get out of the photo app on the Playbook. After playing with it for a few moments I got the hang of it and found the menu/context switch black border of the Playbook to be quite useful and intuitive. Now, I'm of the mind that this design feature of the Playbook is a winner. No more home buttons. It makes so much sense. And it was Blackberry to initiate this design feature. Bravo!

Issues, complaints, positive design features:
Pre-purchase:
1. No home button only gestures, +
2. No email/calendar/contact list/task, -
3. Multitasking, +
4. Lack of apps, -
6. Excellent browser experience, +
7. Style of OS is bland and less attractive (than iOS, Android), -
Post-purchase:
1. Setup app. The simple "swipe here to continue" action wasn't intuitive. It didn't have the cues that you need to deduce what to do. Apple iPhone/iTouch/iPads are better that way, -
2. Initial power-on and setup lead to straight-away, downloading and installation of update software for the OS (v. 1.07.3373), which forced me to plug the power (didn't like this), -
3. Initial plug-into PC and the automatic installation of Desktop Manager (provided by the device) is an excellent idea, +
4. Initial installation of Desktop Manager stalled the first time (wouldn't complete), had to re-install, -
5. Cut-and-paste of video/audio/docs/pictures, etc. is easy and intuitive, far better than the forced syncing, i.e. Apple iTunes lock-in, +
6. I experienced problems after the re-installation of Desktop Manager. After the initial adding of files to the device the Desktop Manager stopped working, -
7. Wifi stopped connecting also (similar time as 6.) is it due to low power state?, -
8. Blackberry bridge software was easy to use and straight-forward, +
9. Bluetooth connection with other devices (beside a BB smartphone) incomplete at the moment, i.e. headsets don't work, etc., -
10. Screen is nice, haven't tested HDMI yet, +
11. No google apps, -
12. Switching to another app while listening to music continues to playback music, switching to another app while listening to a video does not continue playback, -
13. For 12. at least the video pauses, +
14. Video paused and video player exit does not remember your last position in the video the next time you load it, -

15. Playbook development offerings looks good; native, Android apps, Webkit (HTML5), MIDP (traditional BB smartphone apps), +

Use Cases:

1. Powerpoint presentations (requires micro-HDMI cable to HDMI, and an adapter from HDMI to VGA, I would like to see the quality of the picture)

2. As a media server, playback media to a large screen television

3. Book reader (will I enjoy reading from the device? so far so good)

4. Audio player (good enough? playlists, etc.)

5. Alarm clock (looking for the right clock, does it need to be plugged in to function correctly?, internet radio to wake up to? will it announce the weather?)

6. GPS device (so far I don't really like Bing Maps, too slow to load)

7. RSS reader (how convenient is it to receive feeds?)

8. eMail/Calendar, etc. (they need to make this native on the device)

9. Chinese input, learning tools, dictionaries, etc.

Authentication

My work involves monitoring production systems (Information Technology) with a medium sized company. I've been supporting CA eHealth (was Concord eHealth) and EMC Smarts for 4 years now. The problems of monitoring are interesting. After 4 years I figure I would be bored with the work. But after 4 years I'm still plugging away hoping and working to make the system better. It's funny because the problems of monitoring (network management) isn't so different from other problems in the Internet community (which I'll explain later).

This past week I've been investigating implementing an integration script so that a login to my application (EMC Smarts) would authenticate to an external authentication authority. EMC Smarts uses a flat database file called serverConnect.conf (same as /etc/passwd on UNIX for instance) for authentication. It works but there are problems with it.

The problems are:
1. For UNIX users, Smarts allows a field in the serverConnect.conf file. So if you can login to the host (system console), i.e. there is an entry in the /etc/passwd file, then Smarts will authenticate to it (libcrypt.so more on this later). This is fine but what if the host uses LDAP? Or if NSS contains an entry such as:
passwd files ldap
It won't work with Smarts.
2. For Windows users, if Smarts is installed on a Windows host then "user@domain" would authenticate to AD (as long as the host was a member of the domain
3. No cross-platform central authentication authority except for the flat file
4. Smarts application doesn't allow users to modify their passwords

The good part is that EMC provides a script as a proof-of-concept that allows you to integrate with another authentication authority.

So the process for me was:
1. Learn LDAP
2. Learn Active Directory
3. Learn the script
4. Integrate the script

Directory services and LDAP

LDAP is a protocol but it is often confused with a data store (or database). The problem is that LDAP as a data store is described as a hierarchical database (as opposed to a relational database). But could you use the LDAP protocol separate from the database? Anyway, LDAP is a new protocol that simplifies X.500. There is a huge writeup on the Internet regarding this technology. I'm still unclear about it. But for my present purpose I know enough.

Active Directory

Active Directory is Microsoft's directory services. It is an LDAP compliant directory service. Most of IT uses AD as it's central authentication authority. It works and it's administration efficient (meaning it saves people time over the UNIX solution).

The script

It may not be interesting for anyone not working with Smarts, ... (more later)

Language learning - Cantonese

How do people learn?

As children we learn, step by step. We are spoon-fed. Which makes sense. Learning is an experience as we grow up.

But we reach a point where learning isn't an experience. It becomes a mass of information. We've reached a stage where learning becomes an exercise in organization. We read concepts, we filter, we sort, and finally we re-gurgitate. Analyze and then synthesize.

How does this apply to language learning? I hate learning by memory. It's terribly slow. I prefer getting all of my concepts all at once. And then begin to break down the constituent components until I can surmise the function of a component from it's position to the rest of the components. Architecture is king. Why learn piece-meal when you can get a blueprint?

Why is a blueprint more valuable than the experiential approach? Because a blueprint is a model which we can understand at-a-glance, we can re-use learning techniques (from one analogy to another), breadth-first-search (when the entire map is unknown) is an exponential algorithm whereas depth-first-search (with knowledge of the entire map) is more efficient. Hmmm, ... learning a language isn't a search algorithm.

I did a search for "comprehensible input". Dr. Krashen's theory on second-language learning. Below is a link with a great deal more advice as to language learning. The information provided is very useful.
http://www.sil.org/lingualinks/languagelearning/essaysonfieldlanguagelearning/langglrnnginthrlwrldfrnnbgnnrs/LanggLrnngInThRlWrldFrNnBgnnrs.htm