The (Yellow) Pod (camera beanbag)

Concept:  2 out of 5
Execution:  3 out of 5
Yeah, but: THE annoying website needs to be forgiven.

The Long Version: Beanbags aren't exciting, and the Pod is no exception. I bought mine many years ago and have only used it sporadically since then. In fact I've forgotten that I own it for months or years at a time, only to rediscover it at the back of the cabinet, look at it, and then put it away again.

As a review, this must not sound too promising, but my point is that sometimes I'm not too bright.

I didn't have it with me last christmas, when I had to balance a camera on the back of a couch because I was away from home and neither of my two (2) Gorillapods would fit in my camera bag. I didn't have it when I was on a trip with my long Sigma 180 Macro lens, where its vinyl base wouldn't have been affected by the dampness left over from a weekend of drizzle. And I haven't thought to use it for any of the impromptu product photography for this blog, even though holding the camera still(er) and just a little above the table is usually what I need to do.

Despite its unglamorous and unassuming nature, the Pod can be a handy thing to have.

Yellow Pod holding a Hasselblad and CF 150mm f/4 lens

The Pod is a little different from a conventional beanbag, which is usually nothing more than a small lumpy pillow. Instead the Pod is a squat fabric cylinder with a tough vinyl-ish bottom and a threaded mounting screw on the top. It can be used as a monopod replacement, stabilizing the camera to give an extra couple of stops on a long lens or slow shutter, where it has the combination of movement and stability that you'd get from a squishy ballhead. Any beanbag is just an intermediary between the camera and its improvised support, and for this job the Pod doesn't need to be large since it stays with the camera as it moves.

But if the camera is balanced properly, the Pod is also a light-weight travel-tripod replacement, able to hold the camera securely on rough or sloped surfaces as much as 30 degrees off horizontal. To this end there are a half-dozen different models with various sizes and mounting methods, but the one that works for an SLR with a prime lens may not suit the same camera with a basic zoom. Of course there's no rule that says that you must have the camera attached to the tripod mount, but if the Pod's going to be used with one particular camera and lens, it makes sense to get the right one. Choose carefully to avoid disappointment – ideally from a local store with a good exchange policy.

In a possible nod to its compatriot, the Robertson screwdriver, each model is identified by its colour. The yellow version that I use is the smallest size with a centered tripod screw; the Red is their medium size and is probably the best general-purpose pod for cameras that balance near their tripod mount. The most-popular Green model has an offset tripod screw for cameras with longer lenses. Black is their biggest size - like the screwdriver - and it would make an interesting companion for my GX680. Blue and Silver round out the collection, and like the Green they feature off-centre mounting for various sizes of camera.

The bottom of the Pod is tough and grippy, and has a seam that's secured with a velcro-like material. Inside are billions of little plastic pellets that are just waiting to escape, so don't open it unless you have to. But if you're traveling and space is critical, this gives the option of carrying it empty and filling it with sand, dried beans, or little plastic pellets once you arrive. I've had to open mine up and empty it so that I could tighten the mounting screw, which had retracted into the Pod over its years of occasional use. A #2 Philips screwdriver was all I needed to snug it back up to the solid plastic disk that forms the camera platform, and with patience I was able to get almost all of those little plastic beads back in.

I've brought my Pod out of retirement because it's a good match to my little travel camera, and it lets me take photos in places that wouldn't allow tripods. Now that I'm using it again I can see many times when it would have been helpful in the past, and I don't think I'll make those mistakes again. I'm not going to run out to buy any of the other sizes, but I have to admit that I've been considering it, if only a little. Having a Red or Black one would be pretty handy.

last updated 30 jan 2011

The Robertson Screwdriver

Concept: 5 out of 5
Execution: 3 out of 5
Yeah, but: No relation.

The Long Version: The Robertson screwdriver is a Canadian touchstone, somewhat like the RCMP, moose, and poutine. As something that's demonstrably superior but under-appreciated across the rest of the world, well, if it wasn't Canadian by birth we'd probably adopt it.

We're funny that way.

The Robertson screwdriver has a square head that provides an exceptional grip on the screw, but without the over-tightened bite of its American replicas. Like Helvetica and Arial, the Robertson and square-drive screwdrivers look a lot alike, but where one is a refined design of elegance and function, the other one just looks similar. A proper Robertson screw will cling to the driver without it being magnetized, and yet it disengages smoothly when the job is done. There's enough power in the tapered fit that a Robertson driver will still extract a screw that's been painted into place, and they don't strip or jump the way Philips screwdrivers will.

Robertson sizes are denoted with colours instead of numbers. The medium-size that's most common is red; anyone who calls this a "#2 Robertson" deserves arched eyebrows and a thorough looking-down-on. Black is the largest size, with green being smaller; yellow and orange are smaller still but much less common. Typically the handles of a fixed-bit driver will show the colour of the size, while interchangeable bits should be painted to suit. Picking the right driver out of a clutter of tools is quick and easy.

While they're ideal for almost everything, Robertson screws are most likely to be found in woodworking and electrical - if you're lucky enough to find them at all. In America and elsewhere in the world these are either unknown or a small niche (rhymes with quiche) for specialty manufacturers. Even in the country where they were born over a hundred years ago, the genuine Canadian invention is almost completely subsumed within the sea of knock-off products imported from all over the world.

It's hard to get more Canadian than that.

last updated 23 feb 2013

Barnes and Noble Nook Color

Concept: 3 out of 5
Execution: 1 out of 5
Yeah, but: Paper publishing is preferable to the Color Nook.

The Long Version: There's an interesting article on the NPR website, "Digital Divide Propels Barnes & Noble Past Rival", in which the author writes glowingly of the Barnes & Noble Nook Color and how it's opened up a gap between it and it's nearest brick-and-mortar rival, Borders. Based on my experience and the experience of my wife, the Nook Color is barely usable and not worth consideration in its present state. Which makes me wonder if the author actually used the Nook Color. I sincerely doubt Border's management will loose much sleep over the Nook Color, as the NPR article would have you believe.

It All Started...

My wife and I decided to give one another a Nook Color for Christmas. My wife is a veracious reader, and after 25-plus years in our current house, she's filled shelves, closets, and boxes with books of nearly every description. She's purchased so many books over the years that she could open her own (used) book store.

She wanted a Nook Color so she could ostensibly switch to e-books and save the space regular books consume. She, in turn, wanted to give me a Nook Color so I'd keep my hands off of her Nook Color; after nearly 30 years, she knows me all too well for the geek that I am, and she didn't want me tinkering about with hers. Her gift of a Nook Color to me was as much a defensive act as an act of love.

The decision to purchase the Nook Color was easy for us to make; we were drawn to it by its provenance and cost. We've been satisfied Barnes & Noble customers for many years, and have been a member of the Barnes & Noble discount club for almost as long as we've been customers. With that kind of good-will towards Barnes & Noble it was easy for us to purchase an e-reader made and sold by them. And at a cost of $250 the Nook Color is one of the cheapest color tablets on the market, far cheaper than the Apple iPad. It seemed like a very safe purchase to make.

When we purchased our Nook Colors I purchased mine on-line from Barnes & Noble while my wife purchased her's from Amazon. The Amazon purchase turned out to be problematic because of Amazon's 14-day return policy. Barnes & Noble had a much more customer-friendly return policy; their web site stated that they would accept any Nook Color return, if purchased after November 30th, opened or unopened, until January 31st, 2011.

Our Nooks were purchased on December 14th. We opened them Christmas day. After two weeks of working with the Nooks we decided to return them both by January 10th. Because of Amazon's return policy we were out of Amazon's return policy window. It is to the credit of Barnes & Noble that they accepted, for return, the Nook Color purchased through Amazon, and for that I am most grateful. But let me back up a bit and recount our experiences with the Nook Color and why we returned them.

Technical Specifications

The Color Nook is a color screen tablet computer. It is built around an 800 MHz ARM-core-A8-based Texas Instruments OMAP3621 processor with 512MB DRAM and 8GB of flash storage. The front contains a 7 inch diagonal 1024 by 600 pixel resolution capacitive multitouch color screen that is supposedly capable of displaying 16 million unique colors.

The operating system running on the Nook Color is based on Android 2.1, with extensions added by Barnes & Noble for the Nook Color. The specific Barnes & Noble OS version tested with the Nook Colors we had was 1.0.1. TheNooks initially shipped to us with version 1.0.0 installed. I downloaded the 1.0.1 version from Barnes & Noble and upgraded both via side-loading.

The Nook Color is powered by a rechargeable NiMh battery, which gave a practical limit of between five and six hours operation using the 1.0.1 OS release with WiFi enabled.

The exterior controls consist of an on/off push button on the top left, a pair of volume control push buttons on the top right, and a single control on the lower front in the shape of an inverted 'u', but meant to represent a lowercase 'n'. At the bottom edge is an industry-standard miniature headphone jack and a sub-miniature USB connector for both data and charging.

Presentation

If there's one lesson Apple's success has taught the industry, it's that the initial packaging presentation is important to establishing overall customer satisfaction. Apple's packaging presentation is legendary. B&N's is not quite as legendary, but it's still quite nice and earns points for not having required as many dead trees as some of Apple's more elaborate packaging excesses.

The Nook Color's box is simple to open. There are small magnets embedded in the lid and the opening to keep the lid closed or, when open, flat against the back of the box. The lid doesn't flop around.

In the lid itself is a simple box that is easy to pull out and open. It contains the Nook's four foot long USB to micro USB cable and a small wall wart to charge the Nook's internal battery. When the cable is not being used for data access, it plugs into the USB-style slot on the wall wart for charging.

Many more points are earned by the cable. The Nook use a standard micro USB connector, the same as many contemporary cell phones now use. It's a foot longer than an equivalent Apple cable (the Apple cable uses a proprietary connector into the iDevice), and it's a lot thicker and more robust. When not used to charge the Nook, the USB cable can be used to connect to a PC or a Mac and access the Nook's internal flash memory.

That's right; the Nook acts like an 8GB thumb drive when connected, and it's very simple to drag and drop content such as JPEGs, MP3s, and other electronic content to and from the Nook. From a data perspective, it's an open device. More points to the Nook for being so open.

What's clever about the box is that the end of the lid contains a foam insert with a slot cut out the same width as the Nook. With the box opened it acts as a simple holder for the Nook.

Operations

With all those good points, why were the Nooks returned? The Nooks were returned because their performance was awful. Whether it was trying to flip between the virtual pages of an electronic book, or trying to scroll a web page using the built-in browser, or trying to interact with the Nook in general, the Nook would either freeze during an operation, inconsistently recognize finger interactions, or scroll in a very choppy and annoying fashion.

In stark contrast, any iDevice you can purchase from Apple is buttery smooth in its operations and highly consistent and predictable in its interactions.

My wife is a very forgiving woman, and will blame herself for a device's intransigence before she blames the device, but after two weeks of fighting her Nook she realized it wasn't her and finally had me return it.

My experiences were far worse. Not only was performance choppy, but I lost track of the number of times I locked my Nook up with the built-in web browser. Every time the Nook locked, I had to hold down the on/off button to force the Nook to power down completely and reset the device. Then I'd power it back up again.

Other issues I had concerned it's inability to read any PDF I tried to load on the device, and the limited color range for JPEG images. The Nook would appear to open PDF files, and display the front page, but it would never display any other page in the document.

Remember those 16 million colors the Nook is supposed to display? The current Nook Color will only display a far smaller number; JPEGs that display smooth tonalities on most other devices (iDevice, Mac or PC) show up as step-wise color messes on the Nook, with dark areas completely black and light areas blown out.

To add insult to injury, the device I gave to my wife had to be exchanged December 27th when the Nook stopped playing any audio. My wife had set up an account with Pandora, and was enjoying the streaming music when it simple stopped playing. No reseting of the Nook would correct the problem; in the end we had to drive to a downtown Orlando store and exchange it.

Return and Final Comments

Let me take a moment to praise a local Orlando member of Barnes & Nobles staff; Tammy Randoph. Tammy works at our local Barnes & Noble at Sandlake Road and Dr. Phillips Blvd. When it came time to return my wife's Nook, Tammy credited our account for the device, even though we didn't have the receipt and it wasn't purchased at her store. It turned out that exchanging my wife's Nook "reset the clock" and removed the initial purchase record. According to Barnes & Noble's system it appeared as if her Nook was actually purchased on December 27th.

The other Nook had to be shipped back (free shipping) to Barnes & Noble for a full refund.

It's excellent customer service that makes us loyal Barnes & Noble customers, in spite of our negative experience with the Nooks.

The on-line press has been reporting since December 2010 that Barnes & Noble was near to releasing an Android 2.2 version for the Nook Color that would address most, if not all the issues we encountered with our copies. But as I was standing at the local Barnes & Noble to return my wife's Nook, one of the staff (not Tammy) remarked that if we waited until February, Barnes & Noble would release Android 2.2. When I realized this magic release was sliding to the right, I finally and completely gave up on this version of the Nook. I wasn't going to wait for a new OS release that might, or might not, make the Nook Color the type of device it should have been at its release.

I continue to be a loyal Barnes & Noble customer, and still enjoy the regular stop by the book store to browse and purchase books. But it's going to take a lot of work on the software side before I'll consider purchasing another Nook Color.

last updated 18 january 2011