Oakley Airwave – Review

The Oakley Airwave is now one of my favourite tech toys! It is clearly still early days for what is possible with the product, so there is the usual early adopter hassle factor with some of the features and especially the online software. But I am sure all of that will improve rapidly.

==> Click here if you wanna buy the Oakley Airwave Goggles<==

I could not wait to get my hands on the MOD Live HUD from Recon once I got to Canada, but I was not sure if they would fit into my goggles. Then just before we arrived in Fernie, Oakley launched the Oakley Airwave with built in MOD Live HUD. So the only thing I HAD to get for myself in Calgary was the Oakley Airwave goggles.

Gunmetal with Black Iridium lens and White Factory Text with Fire Iridium lens

Oakley Airwave Goggles

From online reports it sounded like I would be able to get the Oakley Airwave goggles at an Apple store. So I made sure we got to the closest Apple Store, even with the kids being extremely tired from the jetlag. The Apple Store was in a big mall, so while the kids slept in the car I raced inside.

Walking towards the Apple store I noticed that there was an Oakley Store upstairs. When the Apple Store did not have the Oakley Airwave goggles, I went round to the Oakley Store. Luckily they still had some left, the Gunmetal with Black Iridium lens was sold out but they still had White Factory Text with Fire Iridium lens.

Now I could not wait to get onto the mountain to try the Oakley Airwave goggles out. They worked like magic, and for a data obsessed geek like me, it makes skiing even more fun. Not that I thought that was possible. Here is some of the pros and cons of the Oakley Airwave goggles:

Pros of the Oakley Airwave goggles:

– The heads up display worked perfectly for me, I love checking the starts after every run and the max stats served as motivation for me and a mate to have a race.

– It is just so cool! The goggles look awesome and the Iridium lenses remind me of fighter pilot lenses.

– Uploading the data to the web based software is very easy.

– The lenses are interchangeable so you can change them for varying conditions. (You have to buy the other lenses separately).

– The apps are great. I have a Contour GPS camera, it connects through Bluetooth to the Oakley Airwave. This allows you to see what the camera is recording on the Heads up Display.

– Unlike endomondo the software both on the goggles and online knows when you are on a lift and when you are skiing. So the data only records when actually skiing.

– It connects to Android and iPhone (only 4S or 5). The latest update for the iPhone app also allows you to control music, read text and see caller ID on the Heads up Display (same for android).

Cons of the Oakley Airwave goggles:

– Battery life – like most first versions of hardware the battery life is not all that great. I have had to turn the brightness down and turn the display off at times to conserve the battery.

– I use endomondo with a heart rate monitor when doing other sports, so I love having the heart rate stats and more accurate calorie count. Although you can buy a polar heart rate monitor that will allow you to see your heart rate at any one time on the Heads up Display. This data is not recorded. Bummer.

– Engage the online software is still very elementary. It only gives you the run data and displays it on a map. No aggregate data or any other manipulation is given. They can learn allot from endomondo on what to do with all this rich data.

– Like endomondo there are also some discrepancies with the data on the device and once it is uploaded. One example is that the device measures jumps in time and online shows it in distance, I can’t seem to find a way for this to correspond.

I have read some complaints online about the loss of peripheral vision with the goggles, but that is not a problem for me at all. They actually align perfectly with my helmet and I have not noticed any change in peripheral vision.

==> Click here if you wanna buy the Oakley Airwave Goggles<==

Overall the Oakley Airwave is one amazing tech and ski toy! There are some drawbacks, but I am sure with software updates and iterations on the hardware this is going to get better and better. As if I needed any more reason to get onto my skis.

Founders at Work- Review

O Man! Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days was incredible. Jessica Livingston, the author, is one of the founding partners at Y Combinator. If you don’t know Y Combinator make sure you read ‘The Launch Pad: Inside Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Most Exclusive School for Startups’. Livingston is married to Paul Graham another co-founder of Y Combinator.

==> Click here to buy: Founders at Work <==

I found the collection of people interviewed in Founders at Work fantastic. It included software, hardware and web startups. The interviews were frank, thoughtful and inspiring. It really felt like it gave me some great insights into what all these people went through in building their business, including the highs and the lows. It was almost like reading a mini biography on each of the founders and their respective companies.

There are some awesome gems in this book, here is a few that had the most impact on me:

Steve Wozniak. – Apple. It was interesting getting his take on the start of Apple, having read the Steve Jobs book. It was also amazing how Wozniak build those first computers with the complete lack of resources especially money. It was a theme that occurred a few times in the book. More noticeable was when the founders did not raise money early, how the limitation in resources forced them to be more creative, and they felt looking back that was part of their success.

Paul Graham – Viaweb. Having read a few of his essays and a lot about Y Combinator, I didn’t think this chapter would be that interesting. I was mistaken, I loved it. The story about how they came up with the first web-based application. That is also where the name – Viaweb came from.

Philip Greenspun – ArsDigita. I was amazed how big some of the service/consulting businesses became in this era. Some of them then changed to product based, and many others seem to have hit a wall. ArsDigita was one that hit a wall, but not before Philip was pushed out by the VC, even though he was still a majority shareholder. After some litigation the VC eventually bought him out, but the business went under not long after that. His whole story about dealing with VC, although like always only one side of the story was very interesting.

Here is the full list of interviews included in Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Day’:

Max Levchin – Paypal. Sabeer Bhatia – Hotmail. Steve Wozniak – Apple. Joe Kraus – Excite. Dan Bricklin – Software Arts. Mitchell Kapor – Lotus Development. Ray Ozzie – Iris Associates, Groove Networks. Evan Williams – Pyra Labs – Blogger.com. Tim Brady – Yahoo. Mike Lazaridis – Research in Motion – Blackberry. Arthur van Hoff – Marimba. Paul Buchheit – Gmail. Steve Perlman – WebTV. Mike Ramsay – TiVo. Paul Graham – Viaweb. Joshua Schachter – del.icio.us. Mark Fletcher – ONElist, Bloglines. Graig Newmark – craigslist. Caterina Fake – Flickr. Brewster Kahle Wais – Internet Acrhive, Alexa Internet. Charles Geschke – Adobe Systems. Ann Winblad – Open Systems, Hummer Winblad. David Heinemeier Hansson – 37signals. Philip Greenspu – ArsDigita. Joel Spolsky – Fog Creek Software. Stephen Kaufer – Trip Advisor. James Hong – Hot or Not. James Currier – Tickle. Blake Ross – Firefox. Mena Trott – Six Apart. Bob Davis – Lycos. Ron Gruner – Alliant Computer Systems, Shareholder.com.

==> Click here to buy: Founders at Work <==

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups Early Days’ is well worth the time to read, it is long but each chapter offers great insight into starting a tech business. Get a copy today!

Kindle Paperwhite – Review

I love reading, and I have loved every one of the kindles I have ever used. So I could not wait to get my hands on a Kindle Paperwhite. Amazon promotes it as the worlds most advanced e-reader, and it does not disappoint.

==> Click here to Buy: Kindle Paperwhite <==

The build in light works really well, so at last I can read in bright light or no light at all, without any problems. I can finally lie in bed and read without a bed lamp. The light has bunch of settings that allows you to adjust it for whatever light conditions you find yourself in. The tech behind this build in light is awesome. It actually shines the light onto the text from above. This means that it is not as tiring on your eyes as a computer monitor or iPad.

One of my favourite features of the Kindle Paperwhite is the ‘time left’. Instead of viewing the progress in the book on the bottom right corner you can change the view to the estimate time you have left to finish the book.

The battery life on the Kindle Paperwhite is also impressive! Even with the light on, will it last a reported 8 weeks. I have only had it for about two so I will see if it can make it that far. This is also my first Kindle with a touch interface. I have been a little nervous to try it up to now, but with all the other great features I decided to give it a try. The touch actually works brilliantly. I don’t know why I was hesitant.

I also got the Kindle Paperwhite specific cover, which fits it like a clove. It complements the already impressive form factor of the kindle. It makes reading such a pleasure that the device seems to disappear and you can just get lost in the book.

==> Click here to Buy: Kindle Paperwhite <==

The only problem is that currently they only sell this in the US. So I had to drive across the border to get one, but it was well worth the 80km road trip to Eureka, Montana. If you can get your hands on one of these, make sure you take it!

Getting Nando’s in Calgary

Our family have the tradition of eating Nando’s every Friday evening. Lately we have combined that with a movie night with the kids. It is loads of fun. As luck would have it there has always been a Nando’s relatively close by, N1 city when we lived in Cape Town, Umhlanga in Durban and Parkview next door to Woodlands. I knew there are Nando’s stores in Canada but could not find one in Fernie when were here in September.

When we were dropping of the rental car in Calgary we happened to drive past a Nando’s. It must have been some sort of a sign, as I now know that there are only one Nando’s in Calgary (which is the 3^rd largest city in Canada).All excited we stopped wanting to have some lunch but it was closed. So we had KFC across the road. Not the same at all.

We got to Nando’s in Calgary by pure chance! What luck!

The next time I got to Calgary to pick up the De Jager’s, I left early so I could stop at Nando’s for lunch. I was not disappointed at all. I could have been in the Nando’s in Corlett drive in JHB. They even had beer on tap, which I have not seen in SA.

Inside Nando’s in Calgary – Felt just like back home!

I ordered my favoured half chicken meal, and it was just like back home. The service was great and the food awesome! Well done Nando’s, I hope you guys have great success and that there will be a Nando’s in Fernie someday!

I ordered my favourite half chicken meal at Nando’s in Calgary

Until them we have to eat another takeout on Fridays, although we all would prefer Nando’s. At least I can look forward to another airport run next week, which I will combine with a stop at Nando’s!

Getting Connected

Getting connected to the Internet proved to be a much bigger challenge than I expected. The plan was to get a SIM card in Calgary to be able to SMS (text as they call it here), do voice calls but most importantly be able to connect to the Internet. We agreed with the owner of the property we are renting to take over their cable TV and Internet subscription for the time we are in Fernie. So I expected to get there and start using the web at blistering speeds.

Things didn’t turn out that way. The first challenge in getting connected was with the 3G connection on my iPhone. When I purchased the SIM card in Calgary, I added what they call features to my prepaid account. Features are basically 30-day bundles you buy on prepaid to make it cheaper. I added a bundle for unlimited text, receiving calls (which you pay for otherwise) and unlimited voice calls after hours. I then also added a 1 GB of data on top of that. The total for these two features was $70.

Thinking that the 1 GB of data would be more than enough I used my phone to navigate in Calgary. That evening while suffering from jetlag I tried to log into my TELUS Mobility online account. After resetting the password about 3 times I noticed that their site is “best viewed in IE or Firefox” and I was using Safari on my Macbook. When I finally got into the account, I realised that the features was not loaded and that I had used up all of the $100 in credit that I had loaded for only a few hundreds MB of data.

The next morning we returned to the TELUS store and after a call to the call centre they corrected it. Apparently it is a known and common issue when add features while activating new prepaid accounts. Clearly pre-paid is such a small part of the market here that they don’t bother fixing a known issue.

Getting Connected – The 3G speed at the house in Fernie

After all that the first part of getting connected was successful. When we arrived in Fernie, the owner of the house had left a folder with a bunch of information for us. Included were the wifi network name and password for us to use. The only problem was that I was not picking up the network.

There were a few others that seem to be available through out the house but the password didn’t work on them. The modem was in a one room in the house the owner had locked with all their personal belongings in there. I contacted the rental agency and after the delay in them chatting to the owners they send me the same information as in the folder again. They must have thought I was an idiot for not being able to connect to the network.

I later convinced them that there must be another problem, so the owner suggested to go to a computer store in town and renting another modem to set things up. They offered to pay for the rental. The store however did not stock cable Internet modems and they said that Shaw (the provider) would not allow two modems in the same house either.

So the obvious next step was to try and get into the room to see if there is a problem with the modem. However the rental agency didn’t have a key. So the locksmith came out to the house and tried to pick the lock but was unsuccessful. He then had the idea that if the owners could give him the number on the key he could try and make one. After a bit of a delay (the rental agency was having their xmas party that afternoon) we got the key number. The locksmith went back made and key and then returned to give it a try. But we had no luck with the key either. The next step was to drill the lock open, but he had to get permission from the owner first. By this time it was too late so we had to wait another day.

The next day he returned and took about 30 min to drill the lock open. When we got into the room the modem was unplugged. I plugged it in, and it all worked perfectly, although a little temperamental at times.

Getting Connected – The line is nice and fast!

Never thought getting connected here in Fernie would be such a mission…but now that we are, we love it! It is nice and fast and we stream video like a dream.