Macjournal review by WP

MacJournal makes an excellent front-end your online blog. You can take advantage of its great text editing features, drag and drop media such as photos or podcasts, and click a button when you are done to publish your entry directly to your blog.

Photos can easily be resized right in MacJournal.


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You can also print MacJournal entries very easily.

Upgrading my laptop's hard disk: Postscript to the addendum

In my last post, I said:

[I]t's a mistake to think you can simply clone an 80GB drive to a 500GB drive, swap the drives, and go about your business.

An old friend who is a fan of the Mac writes to say that, on a Mac, assuming the drive was not corrupted and the clone itself isn't corrupted, then this is exactly what you could do. Maybe. It would seem to be possible to do this on a PC, as well. At least, that's what the Apricorn product that I used to clone my old drive seems to be saying it will do.

But, you know, if you're going to buy a new suit, you might as well shower and shave before putting it on. In other words, when moving from an old drive that has been in use for a couple of years to a spanking new drive, it makes sense to do things right, not simply to clone all your old problems. If instead of trying to take the easy way out, I had done what I outlined in my last post and installed a fresh copy of Windows from the start, and then reinstalled my apps, I would have saved myself a lot of time and trouble. I would have ended up with what I have now, a nice clean installation of everything. And I would have saved myself a few dollars, because the Apricorn enclosure + software package was a lot more expensive than an enclosure alone.

And I committed the sin of laziness not once here, but twice, because when I did finally decide to reinstall Windows, I didn't format the hard disk.

I should add that, of course, I do not know for sure that my old hard disk was okay, nor do I know that the clone wasn't somehow imperfect. I won't ever know what exactly went wrong. One of the Dell techs who helped me suspected that there might be something amiss with my bluetooth card, so he sent me a new one; it arrived today.

I seem to deal with one computer catastrophe on this scale about every 3-4 years. And just for the record, the last catastrophe was on a Mac.

Upgrading a laptop hard disk: Addendum

In my summary of lessons learned, I think I failed to mention the most important lesson of all. That is, it's a mistake to think you can simply clone an 80GB drive to a 500GB drive, swap the drives, and go about your business. Next time I do this, I think I will do it like this:

1. Make sure I have a good backup of all the documents on the old hard drive. By "documents," I mean my photos, databases, client invoices and contracts, etc.
2. Make sure I can recover important settings from the old hard drive - installation licensing codes, passwords, preferences where they're really important, etc. Note that I don't care about having actual backups of these things.
3. Make sure I have the installation disks or master installation files so I can reinstall the operating system and all my applications later. Exception: Don't need master disks for items that can be downloaded on the Internet (like Google Chrome and Picasa).
4. Remove the old hard disk and set it aside in a safe place.
5. Put the new hard disk into the computer.
6. Boot computer from the operating system CD, format the new disk, and install the operating system fresh.
7. When I'm able to boot the computer from the operating system on the internal hard disk, add necessary drivers.
8. Reinstall applications and reconfigure as necessary.
9. Copy the documents from the backup source to the new hard disk.

Had I done this in the first place, I would have spared myself at least half of the grief I've suffered in the last two days.

Upgrading my laptop's hard disk

I work on several computers, but the one I work on most - the one I do most of my database work on, as well as all of my photo editing - is a Latitude D820. I don't know what I was thinking of when I bought a laptop with an 80GB hard drive, but it soon became clear to me that 80GB wasn't enough. After thinking about it for a long time, two days ago I finally got around to doing something about this problem. I purchased and installed a new 500GB drive. In some respects, upgrading was quite easy. In other respects, it's been, well, the word nightmare comes to mind.

Hardware

Since I really didn't know what I was doing at all, I started in Dell's support forums. A helpful user explained that any 2.5" 9mm SATA drive should work in my Latitude D820. The same user also explained how it's done. You put the new drive in an enclosure and attach it to the computer; use cloning software to copy the entire contents of the internal (old) drive to the external (new) drive; shut down the computer and swap the drives; restart and go back to work. Armed with this info I headed off to Fry's Electronics. I purchased two products. First, a Seagate 2.5" SATA drive: 500 GB, 7200rpm, 16MB buffer/cache. And second, the Apricorn EZ Upgrade Universal Hard Drive Upgrade Kit.

The Apricorn EZ Upgrade kit made the hardware upgrade easy. Following the clear instructions, I installed the new drive in the Apricorn drive enclosure. I put the Apricorn CD into my CD drive and installed the software. Then I was able to use the software to clone my internal (old) hard drive, that is, to copy everything from my old 80GB hard drive (including invisible files) over to the new 500GB drive. This took several hours. When the copying was done, I shut down the computer, removed the old drive from the computer and removed the new drive from the enclosure, and then swapped them. I was able to boot the computer from the new drive. Success! Good job, Apricorn!

Software

The hardware upgrade was easy, but unfortunately, it's not the end of the story. In fact, it is just the beginning.

I did the hardware upgrade on Monday night. On Tuesday morning, when I started up in the hope of getting back to work, I noticed the my antivirus etc software - Microsoft's One Care - was complaining that it wasn't working properly. I visited Microsoft's web site, found some troubleshooting info there that allowed me to check the active services and (apparently) correct the problem.

Then another problem appeared. After was I had been working for about 20 minutes, my laptop's screen went dark. The laptop didn't seem to go to sleep or shut down - I just lost the display, and I could not bring the display back by moving the mouse, touching a key or even touching the powerkey. Had to hold down the power key 10 seconds to force the computer to shut down, then reboot. I went back to work, and about 15-20 minutes later, it happened again. Can't work like that, so it was time to call for help.

Seagate tech support was easy to reach and courteous, and seemed to want to help, but the guy I spoke to said that, if the computer boots correctly and seems to be working (at least until the screen goes dark), then it is probably not a hard drive problem. I'm a bit skeptical because earlier versions of the drive I bought got bad consumer reviews online. But Seagate's a great company, and I've had good experience with many previous Seagate drives. He recommended that I contact Dell.

Dell

So I called Dell.

The tech support guy I reached in the morning (William) asked me to run the hardware diagnostics. I did and no errors were found. So he suggested that I upgrade my BIOS and also the driver for my NVidia video card. I did both upgrades and for a while, things seemed to be working all right.I was able to work for more than 20 minutes so far, without the screen going dark. But then I got a blue screen - something I haven't seen very many times in the four years since I started using Windows more than the Mac OS. The blue screen reported that I had experienced a "bad_pool_header" error.

So in the afternoon I called Dell again and got another support technician (Jose). More tests - and more blue screens, always the same. He took control of my computer and ran some diagnostics. We tried using the Windows installation disk to repair my installation. That didn't work either. The blue screens continued. After spending most of the day on the phone with the Dell techs, I finally had to get off the phone around 6pm to cook and eat dinner. But before I started cooking, I started the process of reinstalling Windows XP completely.

In the evening, after dinner, I returned to the computer and completed the installation of Windows. When I was finished, I was surprised to learn that I could not get to my wi-fi network. No wireless driver installed. The techs seemed to think that I should have a separate disk labeled "Drivers" but I don't, and I didn't seem to get such a disk with any of my other Dell computers, either. Anyway, called Dell a third time, got a new tech (John). With his help, I was able to download the wireless driver to my Dell desktop machine, copy it to a USB thumb drive and then install it from there on the laptop. After getting the Latitude D820 back on the wireless network, John took over my computer and installed the other necessary drivers. When that was done I did a little cleaning up, and started trying to restore files from my online backup account with Carbonite. I gave up well after midnight, leaving the computer to continue downloading files while I tried to sleep.

Are we there yet?

Not done yet, alas. This morning I woke up and started installing updates and critical apps like FileMaker Pro Advanced. As arranged the day before, Jose (the Dell tech I spent my afternoon with yesterday) called me back to see how the reinstallation had gone. I told him that, somewhat to my surprise, it appeared that the documents from the hard disk had survived the installation but that they were now in a folder to which I was denied access, even if I logged in as Administrator. He explained that I had failed to erase the hard disk properly when I did the install, and he recommended that I do the installation again, but this time that I delete the existing partition and format the disk before installing.

You can imagine how excited I was about that suggestion, but right is right, so I have taken his advice. I'm now a few minutes from the completion of the clean install....

Wrap up

So, here it is Wednesday night - exactly 48 hours after I began the process of replacing my old hard drive with the new one. I got my new drive formatted (i.e. totally erased!) this afternoon and I got Windows XP re-reinstalled. After my original reinstallation last night, I tried restoring files from my Carbonite backup, which would be great, except that it meant downloading everything over the Internet, and that was turning out to be pretty slow. So today, I took the new drive out of the computer, put the old drive back in, started the computer, and then copied the documents that I want to keep from the old drive to an external drive. Then I swapped the new drive back into the computer, booted, and copied the files from the external drive to the internal hard drive. Now I'm reinstalling applications. By the time I go to bed tonight I should be back in business. And I only lost two whole days!

I typing this with my fingers crossed (harder than it sounds) but it seems right now that everything is stable and working well. No blue screens, no video blackouts. I'm not going to be completely comfortable for a couple of weeks. Some of the folks who complained about an earlier version of the Seagate drive I installed said that their drives worked fine for the first couple of weeks. But I'll get Carbonite backing me up again tomorrow, so I should be in good shape.

Moral

So what have we learned, boys and girls? I've learned a couple of things.

1. Installing a new hard drive in a PC isn't as hard as I thought it would be.


2. A low-level reformat of a 500GB hard drive takes a couple of hours.


3. Installing Windows XP itself from scratch isn't a big deal, but getting all those drivers installed is exhausting. I give Dell credit though for guiding me very well on its web site. I put in my express service code (sort of an ID for my laptop) and dell.com told me just what to install.
   

I hate computers.

It's Casimir Pulaski day!

Here's a holiday that I seldom celebrate: General Casimir Pulaski Day!

Pulaski was a brilliant Polish cavalryman who volunteered his services to General Washington during the Revolutionary War. He died from injuries suffered during one of his engagements but not before distinguishing himself and coming to be recognized as the Father of American Cavalry.

T-Mobile Dance

I could bring up Intelligent Design here, but I won't. Let me just say that, if this doesn't put a smile on your face, well, God bless you. Be sure to watch in high quality.

T-Mobile Dance on YouTube

G1 photography with Snap Photo

This photo of my dining room was taken with the G1 using Snap Photo rather than the default Camera app. Post processing in Pic Say.

Snap Photo uses the G1's accelerometer (!) to provide digital image stabilization. Seems to work. Keep in mind that this was a low-light challenge. No flash, no sunlight, just one incandescent light.

I adjusted saturation in Pic Say but color in the original shot was better than I expected because Snap Photo let me adjust the WB.

A better browser for Android: Steel

Haven't gotten the 1.1 firmware update yet, but I am happy to have discovered something really good for Android: the Steel browser.

http://kolbysoft.com

Steel has a touch-screen interface, including an on-screen keyboard. I still don't want to type a lot on a virtual keyboard, but it's very useful to have the option for, say, entering a url or password.

Steel also displays pages really nicely. I think the Opera mobile browser is downright ugly. The default browser built into Android - NOT Chrome, as I understand - displays pages quite well. Steel just does better.
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You don't have to be a tech genius to outsmart malware

The other day while Penelope was surfing the Web, she suddenly saw a scary screen saying the computer was infected and asking her to take action. She handed the computer to me. Here's what we saw:



Notice that the presentation looks "official," but is in fact completely generic. Next we got the following messages:



Behind the dialog in front there is a dialog with the even more official-looking title "Windows Security Alert," showing a list of allegedly infected files.

It looks official. But wait a minute. Does Windows ever display the hierarchy of my hard disk in Firefox? If Windows ever wants to use a browser, it launches Internet Explorer.

The other strange thing here is, the front dialog - the one that's telling me to download Antivirus 360 - is coming from the web page antimalwarescaner-dot-com. (WARNING. Don't go there!) I use Microsoft's OneCare to protect my Windows computers. If malware is detected on on my computers, I expect to get an alert from Microsoft OneCare - not from some web page I've never heard of before.

In short, I knew that I didn't want to say okay to these warnings. Instead of clicking OK, I clicked the red "x" to close the window. Unfortunately, my efforts to cancel these dialogs were ineffective. The dialogs kept popping up. That was an additional clue that something was wrong and this not a valid alert.

When this happened on my wife's computer, I ended up holding down the powerkey for 10 seconds to shut down the computer. Two days later, the same thing happened on my computer, and I got out by hitting cntl-alt-delete and quitting Firefox.

A little Web research fairly quickly explained that the problem is due to a piece of malware called Antivirus 2009. It's a piece of "rogue security software" that "hijacks" your web session and redirects you to somewhere you don't want to go. Rogue security software is like a bad cop. Hijacking is like, well, like being hijacked. Ever landed on a porn site by accident? You got hijacked. Anyway, I knew that I didn't want to GO to the web site identified as the source of the alerts, so instead, I Googled it. That search led me to this page, which in turn referred me to the excellent site malwarebytes.org. I downloaded Malwarebytes's freeware utility Anti-Malware, installed it, let it update its database, and ran the default quick scan. No virus found. Whew.

What's the moral here? You don't have to be a tech genius to outsmart malware. If you don't know where something coming into your computer is coming from, block it. Don't open email attachments unless you know who sent them and what they contain. And don't let web sites do anything to your computer unless you're really sure you trust the site. In short,

1. stop
2. take a deep breath
3. THINK

Oh, and it's not a bad idea to have good security software installed.

Speed Dial add-on for Firefox 3

Speed Dial - Gallery

One of the things I liked about Google's new browser, Chrome, is the way it displays thumbnails of my most frequently visited pages when I open a new tab. But there was a lot to dislike about Chrome, as well. First, Chrome displayed 9 thumbnails only. Second, it didn't ever seem to update them. Third, I had no control over what thumbnails were displayed. And I should add, fourth, Chrome doesn't support add-ons.

Which is why I still use Firefox 3 for 90% of my browsing. One of Firefox's biggest advantages is that it supports add-ons. Among my favorite add-ons are FireFTP (a full-featured ftp client built right into Firefox), Deng Google Bookmarks, Tiny Menu and Scribefire. Scribefire is a blog editor: I'm using it right now to write this post, because it's a better editor than the one built into Blogger. Anyway, my newest favorite add-on for Firefox is Speed Dial.

Speed Dial displays thumbnails of web sites, much as Google Chrome does. You can load the thumbnails any time you want - or you can configure Speed Dial so the thumbnails are loaded when you create new tabs and/or windows. Click a Speed Dial thumbnail, the page loads, just as in Chrome.



But with Speed Dial, I can have more than nine thumbnails. I can assign pages to any location in the thumbnail list. Note in the screen shot that I've configured Speed Dial to display 16 locations, and some of the locations are, at the moment, unassigned. Better still, I can have more than one list. Note above the thumb nails that I've configured two different lists, my A list, and a B list with less important sites. Finally, with Speed Dial, I don't have to view the thumbnails at all, because Speed Dial allows me to type a site's location number to load the site. In other words, to get to my Gmail account, I just type cntl-3. To get to The Online Photographer blog (one of my favorites), I type cntl-1-5, that is, I hold down the cntl key and type a 1 and then a 5. Brilliant.

Carbonite works!

I'm still not sure what I did, but somehow, while I was working on my to-do list (a FileMaker database), I accidentally deleted all of the active task records. Gack! I'm a slave to that database. Without those records, I'm not a freed slave: I'm a slave without a clue what to do.

But did I panic? I did not. I went to http://carbonite.com, logged in, and in two or three seconds I learned how to restore a single file from my Carbonite backup disk. A minute or two later, I had restored last night's backup of the to-do database and I was back in business. I can't really see how it could have been much easier.

I've been using Carbonite for a while. It's cheap ($50 a year) and easy. It has some limitations, of course. It won't backup data on external drives, like the large external drive that I use to store photographs. So I have to use a more complicated system to back up photos. But for the stuff on my computer's internal drive, Carbonite can't be beat.

The compact camera I would buy today if I had any money: Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3K

Of course there's no such thing as an absolute best compact camera, but for my own needs these days, if I were buying a compact, this may be the one I'd get: Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3K. I've heard rumors about it coming - PopPhoto.com had a preview of this camera back in July - and I just became aware that it's out by reading an actual review in the dead-trees edition of Pop Photography (October 2008) that was extremely positive. Here's a link to the summary page of the review on DPReview.com, where the camera is given a "highly recommended" rating and compared favorably (in most respects) to the Canon PowerShot G10 and the Nikon Coolpix P6000. And here's a link to the Amazon.com product page where it has a 5-star rating based on 14 consumer reviews - a pretty remarkable achievement. And the reviews are interesting. A number of them are from DSLR users who sound like serious photographers.

The camera's not perfect. Two problems mentioned in the reviews that would make me hesitate are, first, handling is a bit awkward for folks like me with biggish hands; and second, its raw files aren't supported by Adobe. The latter problem sounds like something that will be fixed sooner or later - probably sooner, especially given the reviews the camera's getting. As for the handling, well, I guess I'd want to get to a bricks-and-mortar store and handle one to see how it feels.

Still, there are some real strengths to offset those disadvantages. Like the sensor on my Pentax K20D, the sensor in the DMC-LX3K has been reengineered so that the photosites themselves are larger, and that helps reduce noise. And there's that lens! It's a 24-60mm (35mm equivalent) f/2-f/2.8 Leica DC Vario-Summicron. These are impressive specs. Digital SLRs typically come with kit lens that only go as wide as 28mm (35mm equivalent). This is one of the reasons I really love my Pentax 16-45mm f/4 lens: On a Pentax DSLR, that 16mm wide angle = 24mm field of view. Well, the Lumix DMC-LX3K has that same 24mm FOV. And while my Pentax 16-45 only goes to f/4, the DMC-LX3K goes to f/2 (!) wide open, and can get to f/2.8 at 60mm. Impressive. It's funny how things change, well, at least for me. When I got back into photography a little before we went to China, what I really wanted was long telephoto reach, so I could shoot birds and such. These days, I'm willing to trade long for wide.

While some would disagree, I would also count it as an advantage that the DMC-LX3 has "only" 10 MP. Sheesh, 10 MP is plenty for a compact camera! There's no point in increasing resolution unless you're really getting something in return. The lenses on most compact cameras can't provide resolution that matches the sensors already. So if you're using a Canon G10 or a Nikon P6000 (14 and 12 MP respectively) there's a good chance you're getting nothing in return for filling up your hard disk faster.

Anyway, 24-60mm (35mm equivalent) f/2-f/2.8 lens sounds wonderful. If you really need a digital SLR, well, this isn't a digital SLR. But if you don't need a DSLR but want to take outstanding photos or people or landscapes, or if you already have a DSLR and just want a really good compact camera to carry around when your DSLR would be too big, then the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3K sounds terrific. There's a new compact camera on the market almost every week. This one however seems a bit different.

Followup re TooDo on Android

I was delighted this morning to find an email in my inbox from Edouard Mercier, the smart programmer who created TooDo, the powerful task management app for Android that I mentioned (and criticized) in yesterday's post. I was delighted to hear from him, because it's clear that he really wants to make TooDo better. I have offered a few more of my own personal suggestions for him to consider, and I may have the pleasure of speaking with him sometime soon. I want to say again, what Edouard has done in TooDo is, strictly from a programming and design perspective, very impressive. True, I think the app is too complicated, but it's very ambitious. I would really like to have a good to-do list program on Android that syncs with a good program online. I hope that Edouard's efforts will improve TooDo. It still won't be for everybody. Many people only need a very simple list tool. But for those of us who need something more powerful and more flexible, well, while I like Tag ToDo very much, I would love TooDo if it can just get a little quicker, a little more stable and a good bit easier to navigate.

Edouard also corrected a mistake that I made in the post. I said that TooDo automatically senses your context. Not so. There's a simple "Change Context" button in TooDo's menu that you can use whenever you want to few tasks for a different context - but it's manual, not automatic. I was also playing with Locale last night and I must have gotten TooDo and Locale confused as I was posting late at night. Locale will automatically sense that you've left home and turn on or off certain settings on the phone automatically. I am grateful to Edouard for the correction and for his continuing hard work on TooDo.

To-do list options for the T-Mobile G1 (Android OS)

I've found a couple of to-do lists for the Android OS.

First, I tried TooDo from Edouard Mercier. This was my first choice because it claims to be able to sync tasks with the excellent and very powerful online to-do manager, Toodledo, which I've been using for about a year now. (It also syncs with Remember the Milk, another popular online task management service that I have never used.) In addition to syncing with Toodledo, TooDo has some other rather impressive features, including the ability to detemine context automatically, I guess by using GPS. (Contexts are places you need to be do do certain things. "Pick up laundry" is a task that might make the most sense if your context is "Driving," while "Ask boss for raise" is something you'd do in the context of work.) Unfortunately, TooDo has some serious problems that, for me, make it just about unusable in its current form. I'm very impressed with the programming that must have gone into it. But it's too complicated. To make all the options for every task editable on the G1's tiny screen, TooDo has to use a very cluttered GUI, with icons and buttons whose purpose I have yet to figure out. It reminds me of one of those brilliant Windows apps with totally idiosyncratic GUIs that Mac users used to laugh at. The other problem with TooDo is that it doesn't appear to be stable. It keeps quitting on me, no doubt because syncing with Toodledo is difficult. I only use TooDo when I'm at home with a wi-fi connection, so I don't think this ought to occur. No other app I have on the G1 at the moment has quit on me as many times as TooDo. Still, the instability is an issue that I can be patient with, if the program works well otherwise. But as I said, TooDo is, in my own opinion, too complicated for a mobile device. But do check it out for yourself. There's nothing else as powerful for Android at the moment (as far as I am aware), and you may find that you love it. It has good ratings in the Android Market.

There are a couple other apps for Android that have the opposite problem: They are, if anything, too simple.

ToDoList is about as simple as it can get. The menu offers just one button: add task. Tasks can be given only one property, a simple name or description ("deposit check at bank"). Tasks are displayed in a simple bulleted list, showing the task description and, in smaller text, info about when the task was created. You can't sort the list and as far as I can tell you can't search it. Slow-touch a task and you get the option to cross it off or delete it. That's the app in toto. Fine for quick lists, or for a simple grocery list, but not good for anything even slightly ambitious.

QuickList is another simple app, although it does a good bit more than ToDoList. For starters, QuickList allows you to enter a task either from the keyboard or by using your finger to write on the screen. By "write," I really mean "draw." There's no text recognition going on here. But the GUI for writing on the screen is pretty well done. (Here's a video review on YouTube.) You're given most of the screen to write on, which is important because your trying to write with your finger, which turns out to be a pretty clumsy writing instrument. Of course, the scribble input option would be entirely unnecessary if Android provided a virtual keyboard. QuickList also lets you assign new tasks to colored labels. This is what makes QuickList much more useful than ToDoList. QuickList gives you five different labels to work with, and you can give them names of your own (for example, Work, Home, Shopping). You can then view the tasks for one label, or two labels, or all labels. This is a pretty basic organizational structure but it works well. It's a simple feature set, but even this little bit of organization makes QuickList much more useful than ToDoList.

Finally, I found what seems to be the nearly perfect to-do list for Android: Tag ToDo by Teodor Filimon. In Tag ToDo, tasks are organized by tags. As an organizational tool, tags are similar to labels in QuickList, but definitely not the same. For one thing, tags are just text, without colors. I have created tags for Personal and Work to start with and I'll probably add more later. There's an Add Tag command in the Menu and it looks like you can have as many tags as you like. Another difference between tags and labels is that, in Tag ToDo, you only see one tag's tasks on screen at a time. At the top of the screen there's a selection menu (the programmer calls it a "spinner") that you use to select the tag whose items you want to view. So tags, in a sense, are separate to-do lists. While you're viewing a tag and its items, Tag ToDo will give you some basic stats: a count of uncompleted tasks in the current tag and in the entire app. My only complaint about the way tags work with items is that, once you've created an item within a certain tag, you can't change the tag assignment. If you put a to-do item in the wrong tag, you'll have to delete it under its current tag and recreate it under the correct new tag. (Tip: copy the wrongly tagged task's description, switch to the right tag, make a new empty task and paste into a new task description. Don't forget to go back to the old task now and delete it!)

I've been speaking mainly about the way that tags work, but Tag ToDo has some nice features that are tied to individual to-do items. The most notable is the ability to attach a graphical note - a little sketch, for example, a simple map - to a task. My gripe here is that, when you view tasks in a list, there's no way to tell which tasks have graphical notes and which don't. Another nice feature in Tag ToDo is the ability to move tasks up and down. Well, this is done a bit crudely. The "push down" command actually doesn't push a task down, it pushes it to the bottom of the list. Still, it's more than you can do in ToDoList or QuickList, and it's quite useful.

So that's four different to-do list apps for Android, ranging from the extremely powerful and complicated (TooDo) to the absurdly simple (ToDoList) with a couple apps in the middle (QuickList and Tag ToDo). My strong preference is for Tag ToDo. It's not perfect, but it's pretty close to a model Android app, both in the way it takes advantage of Android's standard UI devices, and in the way it strikes a very nice balance between utility and ease of use.

Integrated Gmail - more about why open source rocks

Earlier today I was reading an article about add-ons for Firefox that mentioned something called Integrated Gmail. After visiting the web page for the Integrated Gmail add-on (here), I downloaded it and gave it a try. It's quite nice.

With the add-on installed and configured, I'm able to get access to my mail, Google calendar, and Picasa, all on the same web page. In the screen shot above, notice that I've hidden my mail away and I'm displaying the calendar (in month view); you can also see just the top of my Picasa Web Albums home screen, as well. Integrated Gmail has a number of other options, allowing you to view Google Notebooks and more. It's easy to configure.

It's not a huge deal, I admit. I'm pretty used to opening calendar and Picasa Web Albums in separate tabs. But I particularly appreciate closer integration of mail and calendar in Gmail. NOTE that this works only on the computer - not on my T-Mobile G1.

What I find particularly interesting about this is that it's possible at all. It is possible because Firefox is an open-source browser and because Google provides programmers with the inside info they need (an "API" or application programming interface) to write code that modifies or extends Google's own online applications. The closed approach to software development taken by Apple yields some good results, and a more open environment does produce a lot of garbage. Nevertheless, I prefer the open model and I think it's better for the world of computing in the long run.

Android talks my language

I was pleased yesterday to discover that many common abbreviations (I've, can't, won't, they're and many others) can be typed in Android without the apostrophe: when you hit the space key, Android adds the apostrophe for you.

But I was really tickled this afternoon when I discovered that one of the abbreviations Android expands automatically is y'all. Very cool!

T-Mobile G1 + Google Android = Something Close to Happiness

I have been reluctant to move to a "smart phone". I am not eager to do a lot of typing on a teeny keyboard, so I am not eager to use a phone for email. I also dislike the idea of being "in touch" 24/7. And I did not want to be tied to a specific email service. For these reasons, I was never attracted to the Blackberry. I liked the Apple iPhone much more. But the iPhone has been too expensive, and I've been tied into a contract with T-Mobile while the iPhone requires service from AT&T. (I know the iPhone can be hacked to work with other providers. Let's just say that, as a software developer myself, I respect Apple's right to set its own terms of use and do not wish to violate those terms.)

But as time has passed, I have felt the desire, if not the need, to be able to access the Internet when I'm away from my computer - to get directions, or to check my email. I've been watching reports about Google's Android mobile phone operating system, and when the first Android phone - T-Mobile's G1 - was released, I checked it out, liked what I saw, and decided to give it a try. After two weeks of use, I've come to like it very much and I'm going to keep it. What follows may look like a review but it isn't. I don't pretend to be comprehensive here. If you want to read more, try this short review at Engadget or this long and very thorough review by Matthew Miller over at C|Net. I'm just offering a few general - and generally positive - thoughts about the G1 and Android, for what it's worth.

The G1 hardware

As a piece of hardware, the G1 isn't perfect, but it's very good. True, it's not quite as sleek and sexy as Apple's iPhone, but it's pretty attractive - compared, say, to Microsoft's Zune, the G1 is a super-model. My thirteen-year old daughter thinks the G1 is very cool, and she especially likes the way it opens to reveal a keyboard, so it passes the thirteen-year old "what's cool" test. And as a grown up, I am aware that looks aren't everything.

The iPhone's minimalist hardware design reflects Apple CEO Steve Jobs's personal devotion to the KISS principle. Apple has never released a a multi-button mouse. Like the Mighty Mouse or the iPod, the iPhone gives users a single hardware control and makes it work very hard. I grant that it's brilliantly done - but ultimately, a slightly more complex hardware design would serve users better. The G1 has six hardware buttons, one of which is also a track-ball. The presence of multiple hardware buttons has the same benefit on a phone as on a camera. Serious digital SLRs like my Pentax K20D have buttons on the body that give the photographer one-touch access to functions that, on "easier" cameras, are buried in menus or accessible only through non-obvious shortcuts. In the same way, the G1's buttons make the phone easy to use.

The keyboard is pretty well designed, too. Many reviewers of the G1 who are also familiar with the iPhone have opined that a hardware keyboard allows for faster, more accurate text input than Apple's virtual keyboard. I'm not entirely sure about that. I have only a little experience with it but the iPhone's virtual keyboard does seem very well designed and, judging from this YouTube video, an experienced user can indeed input text quickly and accurately on the iPhone. But I'm pretty sure that the G1's hardware keyboard is not worse than the iPhone's virtual one and I suspect that, if you want to type a lot and especially if you want to type with correct punctuation, the G1's keyboard is a bit more efficient. And the G1 has an advantage in another respect. While at first, a "closed" G1 looks like its display is smaller than the iPhone's, when you flip out the G1's keyboard, the G1 actually seems to have the advantage, because 100% of the G1's display is still used for display, while a good portion of the iPhone's is taken up with the virtual keyboard. I do want to add that I wish that Android provided a simple virtual keyboard that could be quickly accessed when the phone is not flipped open. There are times when I would like to type just a few letters or numbers, and it would be nice to be able to do so without having to flip open the phone and change its orientation. Perhaps that will be added in a future release of the OS. There's no chance, on the other hand, that your iPhone will get a software update that gives you a physical keyboard.

I have two gripes about the hardware and both have already been voiced by most reviwer's. First, the phone's "chin" seems to get in your way on the right side as you type. But I'm getting used to it. Second, I wish I could plug in earphone's while the phone is being recharged, but I can't.

I should add a comment about battery life. Like many new users, I noticed that the phone's battery seemed to deplete very quickly. But I have learned how to reduce the draw upon the battery (for instance, by turning off GPS satellite use) and by letting the battery run down completely before recharging I've been able to get a longer-lasting charge.

Finally, I find that the G1 works pretty well as a phone. When I'm within range of a wi-fi hotspot, I can use wi-fi for my phone connection, which seems to improve reception and also saves me money by not counting against my minutes. My older T-Mobile phone never worked well at home. The G1 does work fine here, because it's getting its signal from our home network, which provides a pretty strong signal. I am starting to use the G1 for work from my home office in preference to using Skype, which has had numerous problems of its own.

Android, Google's mobile phone operating system

As for the Android OS, I like it a lot. Not surprisingly, it is well suited to users like me who already rely heavily on Google's various online apps, especially Gmail and the Google calendar. I do hope that future versions of Android provide better support for Picasa Web Albums and Google Docs and Spreadsheets.

The Android GUI is attractive and generally easy to use. It took me about 1 minute to set up the phone initially: I simply provided the username and password for one of my Google accounts and I was off to the races. The built-in apps for Gmail and Google calendar work pretty well. Unfortunately, they are tied to a single Google account. If like me, you have several accounts, well, that's a problem. You could have messages from the other accounts forwarded to the account you use on the G1, but as far as I can tell, you can't select different FROM accounts when you send mail in the G1's Gmail application, the way you can when you access Gmail on your computer. I use my william-porter.net account as my primary account now, and I access my software business account (polytrope.com) and my old personal Gmail account using the G1's web browser. It's a little more awkward to get email using the browser, but it's also possible to do certain things that can't be done in the Gmail app, like edit the quoted text to delete unnecessary stuff.

I could say a lot more about my experience with the user interface and the various apps that I've come to use, but I simply want to note that what I like most about Android is its configurability or openness. It's quite easy to put your favorite shortcuts on the G1's three-panel desktop. I'm able to call my wife, or get into my bank's web site, or see today's calendar, with a single touch of the phone. If I'm lost on the road, a single touch turns on the GPS satellite (for the most accurate positioning), another touch opens Google Maps and a quick third touch tells me where the hell I am.

The Android Marketplace is full of free apps that can be downloaded to the phone. I've downloaded a pretty decent free dictionary (Free Dictionary Org), a shortcut-making app (AnyCut) that gives me a lot of options for configuring the way I use the phone, an amazingly capable photo editing app (PicSay) that lets me edit photos taken with the phone's amazingly capable 3 MP camera, a simple notepad (OI Notepad), and an app that lets me manage my ToodleDo tasks on the phone (TooDo). I've even downloaded a few songs from Amazon.com's MP3 market. Price is the same per song as Apple's iTunes Music Store, but the songs come without DRM limitations, which I'm pleased about. I'm going to download a utility that lets me take a riff from a Tom Petty song and turn it into my own ringtone. Neat. (I could do the same thing with the C# fugue from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier but I respect Bach too much to use music I myself have performed in public for a ringtone. I hope Tom Petty won't take this personally.) The one thing that seems to be missing from the Android Marketplace is a database app. Maybe I should get the Android API and see if I could write one myself, but I'll probably just wait for somebody smarter to do it for me. The way new apps are appearing for Android, I don't think I will have to wait long.

It's not an iPhone - but that's the point

As I confessed at the start of this post, I never bought into the iPhone thing, so I am not handicapped by comparisons to the iPhone. What I gather from the reviews of the G1 that I've read is that the G1 is not as mature as the iPhone but that it's already off to a better start than the first iPhone. But what matters more to me is that the G1 and Android are taking a completely different path from the one that Apple has chosen. In this, Google shows how much smarter it is than Microsoft, which generally seems to imitate Apple without being aware that Microsoft can never be Apple, just as a 800 lb gorilla can never be a gazelle. Google knows what it's good at, though. It's good at offering apps and services that aren't locked into anybody's specific platform. By making Android an open-source project, Google has produced something that might almost be called an anti-OS. Microsoft looks increasingly irrelevant.

*

Postscript: I've just learned that a virtual keyboard is on the road map for future Android development and should be part of a Q1 2009 upgrade to the OS. Cool.

Quick note about typing on the G1 phone

I find the keyboard on the T-Mobile G1 "smart phone" a tad awkward to use. After all, I am a 110+ wpm touch typist when I can use all 10 of my fingers. Typing with my thumbs is frustratingly slow. But I am getting a little more comfortable with the keyboard every day and already I am able to type faster than I expected to be able to, and I make fewer mistakes than I thought I would. 

I think it's better to have a full QWERTY keyboard than to have to type with just the normal dialing pad pad of a phone, where, to type the letter "c" you must hit the "2" key three times! And although I have never typed more than a few words on an iPhone, I think I prefer to have a "real" keyboard rather than a virtual one. I read a statistic a month or two ago that noted that iPhone users account for a disproportionately high percentage of mobile access to the Web - and for a disproportionately low percentage of text messages; the explanation offered was that the iPhone is great for browsing and reading but not so great for typing. I suspect I would feel the same way. On the other hand, there are types when it would be nice to have a virtual keyboard on screen as an option. I have occasionally wished that I could type something simple like a phone number without having to open up the phone to get to the keyboard. 

I really wish Android had a utility to auto-expand typed shortcuts, like As-U-Type on the PC or TypeIt4Me on the Mac. It would be a huge help on the small keyboard. The underlying technology seems to be there, because Android already can turn a lone "i" into a capital "I" and can turn two spaces in a row into a period and a space. So the OS is already monitoring keystrokes and can be asked to back up and make quick corrections. Now somebody just needs to figure out how to extend that capability to the "correction" of a user-configurable list of shortcuts, so I could type "tm" and have the phone auto-correct that to "T-Mobile" and so on.

One thing that I love about the way Android handles text entry is the ease with which you can enter accented characters. To type the accented é in "idée" or the enya in "piñon", you simply type the letter and hold it down for half a sec, then select the option you want: è or é or ê or ë. An excellent typist using a Mac can probably enter accented characters even more quickly. But the Mac OS method involves modifier keys and would be hard to implement on the G1. Android's method is certainly a spectacular improvement over what you must do on a PC! I gather that the Apple iPhone uses the same UI trick to enter accents. If Google swiped the idea from Apple, then I have to give Google credit for recognizing a good thing.

Another nice thing about Android's text handling is that you can cut, copy and paste text.

Don't think I'm going to be typing any lengthy epistles on the G1. But for short messages, it's surprisingly satisfactory.

First post from my phone

Here's a pic of my daughter and her friend. This message was written in Gmail on my T-Mobile G1 and automatically posted by email. This must be how Instapundit does it - and now I understand why he keeps his posts short. My thumbs are getting sore!

Do you dare hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon?

Just got back from a wonderful trip with my wife to the Grand Canyon. We arrived on Friday, October 31, 2008. Hiked down the South Kaibab trail to the river on Saturday, spent two nights camping at the bottom of the canyon, then hiked back up the Bright Angel trail on Monday, November 3. When we did this together over a decade ago, we hiked down one day, and back up the next. This time, we spent two nights at the bottom, although on our "day off" at the bottom, we took two hikes for a total of five or six miles.

This is a short note about our experience for the benefit of anybody else who might be considering such a trip. I'm writing especially for folks who have never done a big hike like this, and most especially for other middle-aged folks. Folks who do this sort of thing all the time and already know what they're doing don't need to read this, because they're the source of most of the info I'm passing on here.

The way up is not the same as the way down

Hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back is a pretty serious physical challenge. And it's an unusual hiking challenge, in that, most of the time, when you visit a state or national park and go hiking, you go up first, and then down, but in the Grand Canyon, you go down first and it seems deceptively easy. But then you have to get yourself back up and the challenge may be a bit of a surprise.

We used the two most commonly used trails from the South Rim: the South Kaibab to go down, and the Bright Angel to go back up. There are many other trails in the park, but these are the two that leave from the South Rim and take the hiker to the bridges that cross the river to the Phantom Ranch bunkhouse and the Bright Angel campground, where you will be spending at least one night unless you're crazy. The average walking distance of these trails is about 8 miles, and as you walk, you experience a change in altitude of nearly 5000 feet, almost a full mile down or up. How high is that? Well, the Empire State Building in New York City is about 1400 feet tall, to the top of the tower, so you could fit three Empire State Buildings into the canyon, one on top of the other, and you still wouldn't quite make it to the South Rim. But don't let that scare you too much. Hiking the trails in the Grand Canyon is not quite like walking up several hundred flights of stairs. The trails are steep at times, but overall, they're not as steep as the stairs in an office building.

The general practice seems to be to take the South Kaibab down, and the Bright Angel up, which is what we did. I used to think that this was because the South Kaibab is the harder, steeper trail, but I was set straight on that by an expert hiker that we met on our way down. He pointed out that the Bright Angel does indeed have a number of places that are pretty easy hiking, where the incline is pretty shallow. But precisely because of that, the other parts of the Bright Angel are more challenging than they would be if the trail had a consistent incline the whole way. And the most difficult part of the Bright Angel trail is at the top, which means that, if you're coming up from the river, you'll be doing the hardest part of the hike at a point when you're most tired. 

I would note also that descending presents some challenges that climbing doesn't. As you descend on the South Kaibab, you inevitably find yourself dropping heavily from one step on the trail to another, and all this can be pretty hard on your legs and knees. On the way down, we met an Australian couple who seemed to be savvy hikers. They were coming up the South Kaibab. The fellow said that he finds ascending easier than descending. Might be something to that.

Still, the usual practice (Kaibab down, Angel up) has other things to recommend it. 

At the time of our trip (first week of November) there was no water at all on the South Kaibab trail between the South Rim and the river. Two compost-toilet rest stops, but no water. The Bright Angel trail has (if I recall correctly) four rest stops (Pipe Creek beach, Indian Gardens, Three Mile and One-and-a-Half Mile) and there is water available about midway through the hike up, at Indian Gardens. We drank more water going up than going down. If we had decided to hike up South Kaibab, we would either have had to do with less water (not good - see below) or carry more water from the start (and water is heavy).

Another point in favor of the usual practice is that the South Kaibab tends to keep you walking along the ridges, rather than at the bottom of the canyons, and as a result, the views as you go down are more open. I don't want to say that the views on the South Kaibab are better than those on the Bright Angel trail, because if the view from the top were simply better, then heck, you could stay on the South Rim and skip the hike completely. But it's easier to appreciate the views on the South Kaibab when you're walking down and facing the views. Walking up the Bright Angel, it makes less of a direction which way you are looking.

One final point. There's no rule that says you have to take one path down and the other path back up. You could use the same trail both ways. But the views are quite different on the two trails, and it's really worth taking both trails just for the difference in views.

Smart hiking

When my wife and I made the same trek twelve years ago (when I was in my forties and not yet even joking about being an old man), I didn't do so well. I found the hike pretty challenging. My knees started to hurt pretty badly on the way down. And I was not in a great mood on the way up. Part of that had to do with the fact that, when we did this twelve years ago, somewhere a few miles from the summit on the way up, we ran into swarms of gnats that were very annoying. I finally put the netting part of the inside of my lightweight jacket over my head and got some relief, although I suppose I looked like an idiot, hiking up with my jacket covering my head. But even apart from the gnats, I wasn't in a great mood back then.

This time, I was in a good mood all the way down and all the way up. To be honest, I didn't expect that. I told myself beforehand that I expected to be miserable coming up and I was simply prepared to deal with the misery when it came. But I was never miserable, in fact, I was happy all the way down and up and had a smile on my face much of the time. I really enjoyed the hikes. How could this be? After all, I'm twelve years older and, um, twelve years heavier. And I'm prettier sure I'm not in better shape than I was back then.

I think the main difference is that we hiked smart this time. Well, my wife was pretty smart last time, drinking lots of water. She kept urging lots of water on me, and I accept her recollection that I refused it. I probably declined to drink as much water as I should have back then because I was afraid it would make me pee. I needn't have worried. 

I think there are several factors that made this experience a good one, and I recommend other inexperienced hikers to take these things to heart.

First, carry lots of water with you and drink it. When we left the South Rim to go down, I had about a half gallon of water with me: my Deuter hiker's bladder (similar to a Camelbak) was full and so was my Nalgene bottle. I gave away about 10 oz to another hiker who had run out of water near the bottom of the trek, and I still had a little water left in my Deuter bladder when we reached the bottom - but not much. On the way up, I started out with the same amount of water (half a gallon or so), and I refilled my hiking bladder and my bottle at Indian Gardens, half way up. When I reached the top, my bottle was empty but the Deuter bladder had at least a cup or cup and a half left. I would guess that, on the way up, I drank about three-quarters of a gallon of water. Note that we were hiking in early November. The sun was unrelenting on the way dow - there's almost no shade on a lot of the South Kaibab trail - but the temps were not higher than the middle or high 80s (Fahrenheit). In the warmer months, more water would be important.

Second, we supplemented the water with electrolytes. We put electrolyte powder into our Nalgene bottles, which makes the water into a kind of Gatorade substitute. We didn't put it into our hiking bladders because we were told the plastic in the bladders is more likely to retain the taste of the powder and that this might not be pleasant in the future.  So, in addition to drinking water with electrolyte powder mixed in, we ate electrolyte "gel shots" from time to time. I thought that the liquid packages (you suck the stuff out) were nasty, but the shots that came in cubes were reasonably tasty. You consume a shot then drink some water to wash it down.

Third, we paced ourselves prudently, that is, we pushed ourselves a little but not too hard. I generally felt that I was moving at a pace that took some effort but which I could sustain. There were places where I was breathing hard, but I never had to stop because I was completely breathless. 

Fourth, we stopped from time to time and elevated our legs. I don't remember doing this twelve years ago and I am sure it helped this time. We wanted to stop every hour and put our legs up for 10 minutes. We didn't stop quite that often but we did stop and put up our legs several times on the way down, and several times on the way up. The key here isn't simply stopping but putting your legs up as high over your head as you can. Really seems to help. I stopped fairly often to take photographs, as well, although I don't count these as rest stops, because I did not usually spend terribly long setting up the shot and taking it. Still, even a one-minute pause probably has some small benefit.

Fifth, we ate and snacked as we hiked. We stopped for lunch on both hikes, but we also snacked a lot - trail mix, apples, etc.

Sixth, we used hiking poles. I think I may have had a single wooden hiking stick twelve years ago, and I'm sure that's better than nothing. But the poles really do help, in a couple of ways. I used the poles, going up and going down, to shift some of the work from my legs to my arms, that is, going up, I'd plant the poles on below a step and then push myself up with my arms. (I found that worked better than putting the poles up first and then pulling, but whatever works for you is what you should do.) The other advantage of the poles is that they reduce the chance of a misstep that might cause you to twist your ankle or even fall. When the path got level, I put up the poles. But most of the time it wasn't level and I had the poles in my hands.

Seventh, as we walked, I made a conscious effort to relax the muscles in my legs whenever possible. I did a little reading about "chi walking" before we left and I adapted some of the principles of chi walking to our hiking. Hard to explain this, so perhaps you should read up a little on your own. It's as much mental as physical, but I am convinced it had some benefit. 

Eighth, my wife and I both had decent hiking shoes, and we wore good hiking socks with sock liners. I saw people hiking in ordinary canvas sneakers and in leather-soled dress shoes and I can't recommend either. On the other hand, I saw a number of experienced hikers wearing old-fashioned ankle-high hiking boots. That's what I wore twelve years ago. I still have those boots, they still fit, and I considered taking them. I think if we had intended to do any scrambling, I would have worn the hiking boots. But we stayed on the trails and I found that my Merrell hiking shoes were lighter and quite satisfactory. Here's a link to a good article that compares hiking shoes with boots, but I recommend that you visit the local outdoor specialist in your area and get help buying a good pair of hiking shoes with the proper fit. Reminds me of the scene in the movie Forrest Gump where Forrest and Bubba first enter camp in Vietnam and meet Lieutenant Dan. Says Lieutenant Dan: "Two standing orders in this platoon. One, take good care of your feet. Two, try not to do anything stupid, like gettin' yourself killed." Good advice for Vietnam and good advice for the Grand Canyon, too. If you think the second piece of advice is superfluous, check out the (thick) book entitled Death in the Canyon. If you're the easily discouraged type, you might want to read it after you complete your hiking adventure.

Ninth, pack as light as possible - but not lighter. We paid to have a mule carry our tent and other camping equipment down and two days later to bring the same stuff back up. That saved us from having to carry 30 lbs down and up. We tried to keep our backpacks as light as we could, but we still each carried a fair load. In addition to my clothes, broad-brimmed but lightweight hiking hat and hiking poles, I carried: half a gallon of water (that's over 4 lbs right there), a lightweight windbreaker, lunch and snacks and electrolyte gel shots, a change of socks, a small amount of medicine, gloves, sunglasses, my wallet, cell phone (don't ask why - it was useless), some hiking maps and pamphlets, toothbrush and razor, a moderately-serious Swiss Army knife, some twine, a small but powerful flashlight and an extra set of batteries for it, a small set of Pentax binoculars, and a head net to use in case of gnat attack. My wife carried a similar load, skipping wallet and cell phone, but adding duct tape, moleskin and a small first aid kit. I also carried my Pentax K20D camera with battery grip and two lenses: a Sigma 10-20 ultrawide and a Sigma 17-70 medium telephoto. Next time, I'll leave the 17-70 at the top of the canyon and just take the ultrawide. If you use a compact fixed-lens camera, you can save yourself a lot of weight. Note that I say, "pack as light as possible but not lighter." For most folks the easiest way to cut weight is by carrying less water. Don't do it! Carry that water. And remember the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared. The unlikely is not the impossible. And sometimes, emergencies occur. Next time, I think I'll throw an Ace bandage in my pack as well. 

Tenth, and finally, I used modest doses of pain relievers as preventive medicine. I was cautious about this and had talked about it with my doctor beforehand. I'm not generally supposed to take Ibuprofen because I have had some internal bleeding in the (distant) past. I took just one dose of Advil at the start of each hike. On the hike up, in the middle of the hike, I think I took a couple of Tylenol. These pills were perhaps the least important factors in my success. We are thinking of going back next year and, if I can lose a little weight before our next attempt, I may dispense with the pills altogether and see how I fare. Even if you don't take anything prophylactically, I do think it's a prudent thing to carry some normal pain relievers with you on the hike, just in case you do need them.

I should add that I had made a small effort to prepare for the trip by walking more in the months prior to our trip and by occasionally walking up and down stairs in office buildings. I will be honest: the preparation I took doesn't deserve to be called "training." But there's no question that, the fitter you are, the better you'll do.

So, can you hike the Grand Canyon?

Even if you don't feel up to hiking all the way down and all the way back up, I urge you to walk down into the canyon at least a little ways. Even if you only walk down the trail for 15-20 minutes, you'll get a different view of the canyon once you're below the rim than the view you get from up above. It's worth it. 

As for going all the way down and all the way back up, it should be obvious that hiking the Grand Canyon is not for the very old or the very young, or for the disabled, or for those who have medical conditions that make it unwise to take the kind of risks involved in this sort of activity. Do remember that the interior of the Grand Canyon is as close to true wilderness as the Park Service can make it and even with the trails, it's a pretty hostile environment in lots of ways. If you have a heart attack on the trail or break your leg, emergency response time is going to be measured in hours rather than minutes. It's also perhaps not going to appeal to a lot of adults who are normally active back at home but just not up to this particular challenge. If you're a nicotine fiend, or you are really overweight, or you have fallen arches or really weak ankles or you can't stand to be in the sun, or you're really not into walking all day, save yourself some heartache. You can ride a mule down, which eliminates most of the effort, although not all the pain. (Those saddles are not made for comfort.) Or stay at the top and just look.

(Even if you're young, slim, and in really good shape, well, you can still run into problems on the trail, but I'm not talking to you.)

What about the not-so-young or not-in-such-good shape group? I am inclined to think that anybody who is capable of talking a normal walk in the neighborhood of four or five miles and who can walk up and down, say, 10 flights of stairs in an office building, can handle the Grand Canyon, especially if they follow the recommendations I gave above about water, food, weight, pace, rest, etc. And to those recommendations, I would add two more. Be prepared mentally as well as materially. Expect the hikes to be long and hard, then you won't be disturbed or disappointed when you discover that, in fact, they are. And resolve to stay in a good mood and enjoy yourself no matter what happens. You are in one of the most spectacularly beautiful places on the planet. Be happy!

And if you can make it down and back up, well, you will have reason to feel proud of yourself. The ranger down at Phantom Ranch told us that 5 million people visit the Grand Canyon National Park every year, but only one-fifth of one percent of them make it to the bottom and back up.