Musings of an Entrepreneur

                                                 

Given my itinerant lifestyle I end up working from many different computers. I was looking for a solution to move everything to the Cloud but only had imperfect solutions. Thanks to Microsoft Exchange I already have access to all my emails from any computer and many mobile devices. Carbonite gave me a good backup of all my files and remote access to them, but keeping files in sync between all my computers was always a pain. I would change some files in some folders at home, different files in the same folder at work and keeping it all straight was messy and complicated. I would use a mix of emailing myself the files and copying them on a USB stick, but it was manual, annoying and error prone.

I just installed Live Sync Beta and it’s amazing. It’s easy to setup and keep files in sync between many computers and on the cloud. Best of all it’s free! In the screenshot below you can see I setup syncing between my notebook and my work computer for three folders. If both computers are on, the sync is instantaneous.

The software is not without flaws:

• The interface is clunkier than it should be – I should be able to go on any folder in Explorer and right mouse click “Keep this folder in Synch with Live Sync” instead of having to manually select folders from within Live Sync.
• In Explorer there should be a little sync icon next to a folder to show that it is being synced.
• The focus on peer to peer syncing is annoying. I can see why it’s cheaper from a bandwidth perspective, but many of my computers are not on the same network. You can use the SkyDrive to sync through the cloud, but it’s limited to 2Gb and I can’t find a way to buy more storage. I would be more than happy to pay for cloud syncing.

Hopefully those will be solved in the full product release. In the meantime, if you need to keep files in sync between multiple computers, you owe it to yourself to check out the free beta!

Partial non sequitur: It’s hard to believe Microsoft had a gem like this and I had never heard of it until Daniel Rasmus mentioned it to me over breakfast a week ago. I wonder what similar products are lost somewhere in the Microsoft matrix! I also wonder what weird Microsoft politics infected this project. It seems to have had many different owners over time given the many very different blogs on Sync/SkyDrive/Live Mesh within Microsoft (all of which have been discontinued except for the official Inside Windows Live blog). Also, the product used to be focused on syncing through the cloud when it was called Live Mesh instead of through peers. I hope it becomes the focus again soon!

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I prefer backpacks to carry my notebook to keep the weight balanced on both my shoulders. After I downsized notebook, it made sense to downsize backpack.

The Booq Boa Squeeze is great. It is super light – 2.9 pounds – and very compact in addition to being well built, ergonomic and comfortable. It’s not very big, but can definitely hold a few magazines and a book in addition to the notebook and charger.

If you are trying to carry a lighter load, you can’t go wrong with this backpack!

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When my notebook was my only computer, I only bought super high performance 17” notebooks. What they lacked in portability and battery life they made up for in performance. As a game player, I especially valued 1900*1200 screens and fast 3D graphics. Windows compatibility was a must as few games are written for the Mac and games come out months if not years later for the Mac, if at all.

During the last 4 years, given OLX’s global nature, I started spending more and more time on the road. As my travel schedule worsened, I started looking for ways to shave a few pounds from my backpack. When Apple released a 17” Windows compatible Macbook Pro, I immediately switched – it had a reasonably quick Nvidia graphic card and most importantly was only 6 pounds – 2-3 pounds lighter than any other 17” notebook on the market! Unfortunately Apple never optimized its computer for Windows and I only got 90 minutes of battery out of it.

Two years ago, I decided to go down one size and moved to a 15’4” Macbook Pro running Vista. It shaved another pound off of my backpack and was a good notebook, though again it only had a 90 minute battery life under Windows.

During the past 6 months, my travel schedule has taken a turn for the worse and I spent less than 2 months in New York. I also came to the realization that I no longer needed a large screen or as fast a notebook. The transition to cloud computing means I no longer need to have a single PC to work from. With all my emails on Exchange and all my work files automatically backed up with Carbonite from my notebook and accessible from anywhere, I can work from any PC.

As a result, I now have a powerful Core i7 desktop with an Nvidia GTX 285 and a Samsung 30” 2560*1600 monitor to work and play with at home. Moreover, my game playing has largely switched to consoles. First person shooters like Modern Warfare 2 are now optimized for consoles, have much better and seamless online multiplayer on consoles, especially on Xbox Live, and have larger multiplayer user bases on consoles. I still play strategy and adventure games on PCs and am looking forward to Starcraft II and Civilization V, but the reality is those are not nearly as resource intensive as shooters.

To my chagrin, I also play a lot less than I used to for a variety of reasons, not all of which are bad: a lack of new exciting real time strategy games (where are Age of Empires IV and Rise of Nations 2?), too much work and business travel, new interests (paintball, kite surfing, etc.) and dating (funnily enough it’s much easier to play 4 hours a day every day when you don’t have a girlfriend :)

All this to say I was ready to downsize my notebook yet again. I started looking for the fastest and lightest 13” notebook on the market. To my surprise, Apple was not even in the running. Apple has been extremely slow to update its notebooks during the past few years. The new 13” Macbook Pro, despite the last update, remains underpowered with a Core 2 Duo processor, a 256Mb Nvidia GeForce 320M and only a 1280*800 screen. Worse it’s 4.5 pounds! The Macbook Air is even more underpowered and overpriced with an old Core 2 Duo, a Nvidia 9400M, the same low resolution 1280*800 screen and only a 128Gb SSD hard drive. The Dell Adamo Onyx was by far the prettiest 13” notebook, but suffers from many of the same flaws as the Macbook Air: it’s last generation hardware, has a low resolution screen, only 128Gb hard drive and does not include an internal DVD player. The same applies to the somewhat heavier and less pretty HP Envy 13. There were rumors that Toshiba was going to release a 2 pound 13” notebook, but so far it has not come out (and it does not have an expected release date either). This left the Sony Z Series as the only real option.

A few friends of mine were raving about their Sony Z Series so I checked it out. The Sony Z Series has it all: a powerful Core i7 processor, a superfast 256Gb Raid 0 SSD hard drive (with a 512Gb option), a 1Gb Nvidia GT 330M graphic card, 8Gb of Ram, a long battery life, an internal DVD player (or optional internal Blu-ray player and burner). It even has a 1920*1080 HD screen, a rarity in a 13” notebook! It’s only 3.04 pounds. It’s blisteringly fast, boots Windows 7 in record time and I have been able to get 5 hours of battery life out of it with the default battery! I also hear you can get up to 9 hours of battery life with the large capacity battery which adds 0.3 pounds to the weight of the notebook. In any case, the battery is changeable so you can take a spare with you.

I got the black carbon fiber case which I found to be most elegant. My only complaint is that I have not been able to get it to run my 30” monitor in 2560*1600 (I max out at 1900*1200 on external monitors).

In any case, it’s the best notebook on the market right now so if you are looking for a lightweight high performance notebook, look no further.

Buy the VPCZ1290X now!

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After my last digital camera met its untimely demise by falling in water, I started looking for a new digital camera. I have historically been a fan of the Canon Digital Elph series (Canon SDxxx) as they are extremely compact (around 5 ounces) and take beautiful pictures automatically with essentially no need to meddle with settings. However, I found repeatedly found myself frustrated by the limited zoom (around 3-4x optical depending on the camera) and the inability to zoom in videos.

My objective was to find a point-and-shoot camera that had a much better optical zoom, was easy to take pictures with and remained light. With such requirements, the range of cameras to look at was rather limited and Panasonic TZ5 rapidly rose to the top of the list. It’s a $240, 9 megapixel digital camera with a 10x optical zoom and a 3” LCD weighing slightly over 7 ounces. As I was about to buy it, Panasonic released the ZS3.

The ZS3 is essentially the next version of the TZ5. It’s a $400, 10 megapixel digital camera with a 12x optical zoom and a 3” LCD weighing 7.2 ounces. The camera is the best compact digital camera I ever used! The 12x zoom is unparalleled in a compact digital camera and works wonders. The optical image stabilization works extremely well whether you are zoomed in or not. You can even take effective pictures while walking. The automatic context detection setting automatically and intelligently figures out the context of your pictures – sceneries, low light, etc. – and adjusts accordingly. Picture quality is great. Video quality is also amazing – the best I have on a compact digital camera. Videos are taken in 720p in AVCHD and also have great sound quality. You can even zoom in and out while taking videos.

Note that you can easily convert AVCHD to AVI or other formats using Handbrake. You can also play back AVCHD in Windows Media Player by installing ffdshow then Haali Media Splitter.

If you are not price sensitive, this is the camera to get! Alternatively, for $160 less you can get the Panasonic TZ5. If you value size and weight over zoom, the best compact digital camera is the $240 Samsung SL820. It’s a 5.5 ounce, 12 megapixel digital camera with a 5x optical zoom, a 3” LCD and 720p video support.

The Panasonic ZS3 is the camera for me, but you can’t go wrong with any of these 3 choices. Enjoy!

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I am posting this from 30,000 above ground level thanks to Gogo Inflight available on select American Airlines, Virgin America and Delta flights (I am currently on American).

It’s $12.95 for the entire flight (and I got an extra 20% discount with a coupon from Gogo at the boarding of the flight). The connection has been very stable, disconnecting briefly only once during turbulence. I downloaded over 100Mb worth of files at a sustained 80kbs with peaks of 120kpbs.

I can’t wait for the service to be available on all flights!

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As both a movie buff and an avid gamer, I have both an Xbox 360 and a Netflix account. The November 19 revamp of Xbox Live brought Netflix “Watch Now” to the Xbox 360 and I love it!

There is no beating the instant gratification of watching TV show episodes one after the other. I took advantage of the opportunity to watch most of Season 1 of Jericho and Heroes in 2 days!

I had fears the video quality would be low, but it’s actually very good, even on a 58” screen.

Now they just need to expand the library to include all their movies and the service would be fantastic. To truly satisfy the road warrior in me, they should also allow me to watch movies from anywhere in the world on my laptop (after all, I have a US billing address). I would be willing to pay more for those two features – say $19.99 / month.

In fact if they did that, they would no longer need to ship DVDs, I would be satisfied by the Video on Demand (VOD) service.

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I have had a 17” MacBook Pro for nearly 2 years and it’s starting to show its age. Its Nvidia 8600M graphic card is not keeping up with new games. Outlook takes forever to load (I have 20Gb of PST files). The casing is all bruised up after 2 years of traveling with me every day and being dropped more than a few times.

Unfortunately, the MacBook Pro refresh announced on Tuesday was a huge disappointment:

• Apple did not update the 17” version!
• The 15” Macbook Pro has an Nvidia 9600M, I was hoping for a 9800M
• The 128Gb SSD does not seem faster or to increase battery life relative to the hard drive options

Unfortunately there are no other 17” on the market that weigh 6.5 pounds so I am stuck with my notebook for a while.

I hope they update it for MacWorld in January!

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We were evaluating webcams for doing video conferences over Skype between the OLX New York & Argentina offices and selected those two.

They are 2 Megapixel, they work well in varying lighting conditions, the quality is great and they both cost around $100.

Buy the Pro 9000 if you have a screen or TV to place it on top of. Buy the Orbit AF if you are placing it on a desk and/or want the motorized tracking feature.

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I was having difficulty connecting to games both on the Xbox 360 and with my PC, but ever since I switched to the DGL 4500 and 4300, it’s been working extremely well.

I bought them at CircuitCity.com – respectively for $179 and $114.

Note that I had to upgrade the firmware on the DGL 4500 from 1.00 to 1.02 to solve an intermittent router reboot problem, so if you are not technically inclined, don’t need 802.11n or a very long range, you are probably better off with the 4300.

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I just bought a Dell XPS 420 with a 512Mb Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT, a 3.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo and 3Gb of DDR2 SDRAM at 800Mhz for $1,249 and it’s a phenomenal machine for the price. I hooked it up to my Dell 24” widescreen monitor and Company of Heroes runs flawlessly in 1920*1200 in full high resolution mode.

Highly recommended for price sensitive gamers everywhere!

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