Like many freelance writers, I grew up completely ignorant of ergonomics.  Although I had heard the term batted about during my school years, I had never really considered the effect that a lack of respect for basic ergonomic principles could have on my health and ultimately my livelihood.  In fact, it wasn’t until I was engaged by a client to research and write on trends in the ergonomics and workplace safety industry that I was forced to take a cold, hard look at my own habits and the harm that they were doing to one of my most important writing assets:  my wrists.

On the face of things, it seems odd that it took me as long as it did to come to terms with the fact that ergonomics must be a key component of any freelance writer’s workplace environment.  For example, my mother had undergone carpal tunnel surgery while I was a teenager in order to deal with wrist problems of her own that had developed after many years spent in the administrative and IT sectors.  I had also experienced issues in the past during my classical piano training that indicated posture and hand position were often the difference makers when it came to practice with or without pain.

It wasn’t until I began to experience a startling soreness and numbness in my wrists and forearms after long 10 to 12 hour sessions at the keyboard that I began to connect the dots between the 50,000 words I was writing every week and the poor ergonomic habits encouraged by my standard PC keyboard.  I knew from my recent research into ergonomic typing styles that I needed to make some serious changes to my own workflow in order to avoid chronic pain and potential long-term damage to my wrists and hands, and that lead me to a search for a keyboard that would be safe to use during extended writing sessions.

The Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 incorporates several features that are specifically designed to encourage proper typing posture and provide support for the wrists.  The 4000’s keyboard is not only split into two distinct groups of keys, but these segments are also curved away from each other and slightly recessed into the unit in order to create a more natural hand position.  The keyboard’s center peak also eliminates the need for the wrists to be pointed straight ahead at a 90-degree angle while typing.  A broad, lightly padded front attachment on the keyboard provides additional wrist support, incorporating a gentle slope that avoids the ligament pinching often associated with standalone gel wrist pads.

I have to admit, the idea of a canted, split keyboard was a hard sell for me.  I had avoided these types of ergonomic units for years and cursed them mightily every time I had to sit down at a colleague’s desk and interact with one.  After a short week-long learning curve, however, I discovered that the new keyboard design in no way impacted my productivity.  The reduction – and eventual disappearance – of wrist pain made the seven days of clumsy typing well worth.

It has been nearly three years since I replaced my stock rectangular computer keyboard for a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000.  Consequently, it has been three years since I have felt any pain or discomfort while typing, despite the fact that my workload has increased logarithmically during that same period.  In all honesty, this keyboard saved my wrists, and I strongly encourage other freelance writers to investigate similar ergonomic solutions if they have not already.

Have there been any downsides to moving to the Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000?  Well, I have to deal with deep sighs and frustrated outbursts from friends who attempt to type at my machine, and many of the keys have had their original lettering worn away over three years of constant use (although this problem did not occur to a friend who has been using his MS 4000 for nearly as long, so maybe I have particularly acidic fingers).  So, essentially, the answer is no.  In fact, I just purchased a second Natural Ergonomic Keyboard as a backup in case this one ever gives up the ghost.

I can honestly state that moving to an ergonomic keyboard is the best freelance writing-related health decision I have ever made.  I only wish I had been able to get over my prejudices against alternative keyboard layouts sooner than I did.

For the past several years, I have used a combination of external hard drives and remote online storage solutions to fill my backup needs.  I added the remote online element because I do not currently have a reliable method for rotating external hard drive backups in and out of my home – a must for ensuring adequate data protection.  After all, you don’t want a fire wiping out both your home PC and your backups at the same time.

Mozy

I elected to use Mozy, an online backup service that would automatically encrypt files that I specified from my work computer, copy them onto their servers and then store them for me indefinitely for a low monthly rate.  While Mozy’s software was not perfect, the “set it and forget it” style of service, combined with its affordable pricing for unlimited amounts of data was very appealing.

Unfortunately, Mozy recently changed the terms of its unlimited data backup plan – and by changed, I mean completely eliminated this option.  While the company is obviously free to alter the terms of the services that it offers at any point, the way Mozy positioned and announced its policy shift offered an almost textbook example of how not to interact with an established customer base – particularly one which makes extensive use of social media and online communities.

Alienating Customers

There are several lessons to be learned from Mozy’s handling of its service changes.  The first is don’t make statements that alienate customers.  When Mozy eliminated its unlimited storage backup plan, it replaced it with a 50 gigabyte plan at the unlimited plan’s price point.  The company publicly stated that 90 percent of its customers used less than 50 gig of backup space, and went on to insinuate that the remaining 10 percent were a drain on its resources that it could no longer afford to sustain.  Anyone who chose to remain with Mozy and use more than 50 gigabytes of space would have to pay a multiple of their original rate due to surcharges and other plan changes.

Important points to take from Mozy’s public posture relating to these statements:

• It is not the fault of its customers if Mozy cannot adequately fund its operations using its existing business model.
• In the same vein, painting the 10 percent of customers who used more than 50 gigabytes of backup storage as somehow parasitic, despite the fact that the service was offering unlimited storage up to this point, is essentially an insult to this part of the installed user base.
• There are several other companies offering unlimited online backup services – Mozy was not the only game in town.  Disparaging a subset of its customers who can move to competitors and enjoy similar pricing and service delivery is an excellent way to create a dark online cloud over a brand’s reputation.

The warranty came up for renewal this past weekend.  Two weeks beforehand, I attempted to renew online through the Microsoft Zune management system, but the “Purchase Warranty” coverage button kept sending me to a missing web page.  Puzzled, I tried again a week later and was surprised to discover that the button was now missing entirely from my Zune management screen.

I called Microsoft Zune support and spoke with a customer service representative about the problem.  He put me on hold and came back to let me know that Microsoft put an end to its extended warranty program for the Zune back in November of 2010.  He also told me that I had been notified of this fact, which was not true.  I tried to get more information out of him, and after speaking with his superior he told me that Microsoft was in fact ending all warranty support for all editions of the Zune and would only be supporting the Zune software on Windows Phone devices from now on.  He finished off by telling me that Microsoft no longer had access to any of the parts required to repair any version of the Zune.

This news is both sad and alarming, for several reasons.  The first is that a device that I purchased in November of 2008 was sunsetted by Microsoft only two years later.  That’s two years of use before the cessation of any warranty coverage.  Second, I paid for a full year of extended warranty coverage yet received only 9 months, with no notification from Microsoft that my plan had been cut short.  This is despite the company still finding the time to contact me on an almost bi-weekly basis to send me updates about the Zune marketplace and content available for purchase.

I can only imagine what Zune HD users must think of this repositioning by Microsoft.  Without the ability to extend their warranties on their fairly expensive devices, they are essentially being driven to drop the Zune in favor of a competitor’s product or choose to replace their current mobile phone with a Microsoft offering.

Honestly, Microsoft’s attitude regarding its Zune warranties makes me much less likely to upgrade to a Zune HD or to purchase a Windows Phone.  If the company can be this cavalier about supporting its products over the long haul, why would I take the chance on investing in anything new produced by the company in terms of hardware?

I hope that my Zune will continue to function without any issues for as long as possible, and that I am able to locate a third-party repair service should it give up the ghost before I am ready to move on to a new MP3 player.

The product I initially chose to use was from ZAGG, a company which offers an extensive line of clear protectors for phones and other mobile devices.  ZAGG claims that its transparent invisibleSHIELD products are manufactured out of the same materials that line the leading edge of helicopter blades from damage during flight.  There are a number of impressive videos out there showing demonstrations where ZAGG owners attempt to scratch their protected screens with keys or other metal implements, to no effect.

The ZAGG invisibleSHIELD product also had the benefit of covering the entire face of my Zune, which meant that dust could no longer enter through the gap between the edge of the screen and the body of the device.

I will say this for invisibleSHIELD – it doesn’t scratch easily.  The ZAGG product offered decent protection for my screen from both nicks and dust.  However – and this is a big caveat – there were two problems with the product.  The first is that when invisibleSHIELD scratches, it’s immediately noticeable, refracting light around the scratch to create a rainbow effect on the screen.  Scratches are also very visible under bright illumination or daylight.

Given that ZAGG offers a lifetime guarantee on its product, the idea of swapping the screen cover from time to time whenever accumulated scratches become too distracting might seem like a reasonable trade-off for protecting the glass.  This brings us to the second problem with invisibleSHIELD – it is virtually impossible to apply properly to a device.  In the two years that I used the product ZAGG changed the applicator kit that comes with each warranty replacement three times, but the end result was the same:  an installation fraught with air bubbles trapped under the surface, uneven adhesive transparency, difficult placement and centering on the screen and a tendency to attract dust and fingerprints during the entire process.

Eventually, I got sick of dealing with invisibleSHIELD and I started to look for a replacement.  I landed on Ghost Armor, a protective product purportedly made of the same stuff that ZAGG was hawking, but with a few important differences.  Ghost Armor claims to be self-healing, which means that small scratches gradually fill in over time by themselves, and in addition to providing a lifetime warranty the company also offers kiosks in malls where employees will install the protective screen for you for a nominal fee.  They’ll even do it over and over until you are satisfied with how it looks on your device.

Not having to deal with ZAGG’s clunky application process ever again was worth taking a chance on Ghost Armor, and after six months of use I am glad I did it.  The initial application has held up well, and while Ghost Armor doesn’t seem to resist scratches the same way invisibleSHIELD did, there is an important difference in how they manifest on the surface of the protective layer.  The scratches are clearly visible when my Zune is powered off, but once the backlight is on they somehow disappear, leaving me with a clear view to my videos and menus.  This impressive feat effectively doubles the value of Ghost Armor over invisibleSHIELD, as I no longer have to have it replaced every time it gets marked up – and if the scratches ever do get out of control, I’ll drop it off at the mall and have it ready and waiting for me half an hour later.

Ghost Armor is the clear winner for me when it comes to protecting my Zune from scratches.  In terms of dust-under-the-screen protection, I still have a few reservations, as the Ghost Armor product is not edge-to-edge like ZAGG’s offering.  In the six months since I started using Ghost Armor I have not had any dust accumulation issues, which might point to a build quality problem with my original Zune rather than a design flaw that plagues all models.

Has anyone else made the switch from ZAGG to Ghost Armor – or vice-versa?

The Macquarium.

I have never been a huge Mac fan, but I have always been fond of fish and older computer hardware.  As a result, ever since I was a teenager scouring the early days of the World Wide Web I have wanted to build my own Macquarium.  What is a Macquarium, you ask?  Simply put, it is a Mac which has been converted into a fish tank.  I have encountered many different types of Macquariums online, ranging from iMacs to Classics, but given that I am sentimental a Classic IIe has always been my preferred high tech fish bowl of choice.

Several years ago, my significant other and I decided to make this wet Mac dream a reality.  After locating a decent Macquarium shell in the form of a Classic IIe acquired from the Concordia University Journalism department, we then procrastinated for two years and two moves before actually putting our plan into action.  Actually, it wasn’t exactly our plan – we followed the time-honored steps laid out by Andy Ihnatko in his ‘The Original Macquarium Volume Four’ instructions.   All in all, the process took about three weeks from start to finish to complete, although things probably would have taken less time had we not run into a few stumbling blocks along the way.

Getting Started

The first part was the easiest – disassembling the Mac and taking out its digital guts and screen.  Our machine hadn’t been used in years, so there were no worries about charged capacitors lurking inside its silicon innards.  We had actually cleaned out the Mac just prior to our last move in a burst of inspiration that unfortunately didn’t last past the packing and unpacking phase.

With our computer free of actual computing components, we then moved on to shaving down the many mounting points found inside the computer case.  To do this, we used a Dremel tool, which kept snapping cutting discs but still managed to make short work of the old tan plastic.  The discs were especially effective at generating enough heat to create clouds of worrisomely toxic early-90’s plastic smoke, which most likely took a few years off of both of our lives.  We also had to cut an access port off in the top of the tank, and to do this we used a combination of the Dremel and a hacksaw blade.

Glass

I mentioned above that the Macquarium assembly process didn’t go quite as smooth as we had hoped.  The reason for this?  Glass.  In order to make a tank which fits flush against the case’s front opening, preserving the illusion that the computer screen still remains, it is necessary to custom build an angled glass tank that fits inside the unit.  At first, we went to Home Depot to have our glass cut, but while they were happy to do 90 degree corners for us, they refused to do any angled cuts.

This led my partner to buy a glass cutter and attempt to do the cuts on her own.  Given that the angles are shallow, the glass cutter was unable to provide the type of precision required to create the smooth lines needed to join up with the rest of the tank.  After going through several different pieces of glass that each ended up with small, leak-inducing chunks on their edges, we finally located a neighborhood glass and mirror shop.  We then discovered that glass is really cheap – even custom cut glass – and never looked back, having them cut the angles for us.  If anyone reading this is considering following in our footsteps, I cannot stress enough how inexpensive and easy it is to have a pro cut the glass for you.  Don’t do it yourself – it’s not worth it.

Around June, the dust under the screen of my Zune reached the level where it seriously impeded my ability to view video except in low-light conditions.  I called up Microsoft Zune support and after haggling with more than one representative (largely my fault, as I was unaware that dust under the screen was a valid warranty replacement claim), I was told that they would be sending me a box and a shipping label so that I could return my Zune to be serviced.  They also explained that it would most likely be replaced with a refurbished unit instead of actually being disassembled, cleaned and returned to me.

So I waited approximately 5 days, received my box, and then sent the Zune away to wherever Zunes go just before they end up in the big landfill in the sky.  This reset my waiting clock, and it was another 15 days before a shiny, new-to-me Zune was delivered back to my home.  Grumbling a bit, but feeling largely powerless I opened up the box and set about restoring both my music and my beloved Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes to the unit.

Upon connecting it to the software on my PC, I discovered that the Zune that had been sent back to me was not exactly…fresh.  Browsing through it I discovered that there were a number of video files already sitting there on its hard drive.  Thinking that they were perhaps promotional vids from Microsoft, I simply deleted them and didn’t think too much about it until a few weeks later when I was listening to my music on random.  Suddenly, I was hit with a song that I hadn’t loaded onto the player, by a band I in fact despised.  Surprised, it took me a few seconds to realize that there must have been a number of music tracks also pre-installed on my supposedly refurbished Zune that I just hadn’t noticed when I first booted it up.

Later that day, I connected the device back to the software interface in order to delete the offending track.  Unfortunately, according to my PC, the song did not exist on my Zune hardware.  No matter how I searched for it, it just didn’t turn up.  A sinking feeling began to form in the pit of my stomach as it dawned on me that somehow, the OS on the Zune had become corrupted to the point where someone’s old music was now sharing the space with my own – old music that was completely impossible to remove.

One of the biggest challenges in learning to drive my Miata in a competitive setting has been adjusting to the fact that it is much, much smaller and lighter than anything I have ever driven before.  I grew up driving mostly large sedans and pickup trucks, and previous to this my autocrossing and ice racing experience was done behind the wheel of a 1991 BMW 5-Series sedan.  While the E34 is a capable platform, it weighs in the neighborhood of 3,400 lbs, which is a half ton more than my Miata.

The first few autocross events I attended in the new car saw me trying to fight the vehicle around the cones as though it were the same portly beast that I was accustomed to piloting.  My BMW had been all about controllable oversteer, with a lack of rear grip amplified by narrow tires and an abundance of torque from its inline 6.  This led me to develop a driving style that could perhaps best be described as ‘reactive wrestling’, and combined with my propensity to be abrupt rather than smooth with my throttle and steering inputs, I was unsettling the Miata on an almost constant basis.

After attending a 2 day Evolution Performance Driving School, I finally began to see that in order to wring better course times out of the Miata I would have to approach it much more delicately.  The car simply did not possess the power to cover up for my mistakes, and it wasn’t prone to linear oversteer but rather gripped until the last minute until it would abruptly step out of line thanks to the shorter wheelbase and Torsen rear differential.  This meant that I had to maximize my smoothness and maintain as much momentum as possible throughout the course.

The lightness of the car also lent itself to a very different approach when it came to course evaluation.  I found that I was often holding back in terms of acceleration during slaloms and straights instead of pushing the car to a high speed and then slowing down for corner entry.  The lightness continues to surprise me in terms of the vehicle’s overall dynamics.  It also took until very recently for me to trust that I could turn in much quicker than I had in the BMW and still clear the cones – leading to much faster times.

This coming weekend will be my first 2 days on a road course with the Miata, and I expect to learn even more about the vehicle during that time.  Does anyone other there have any tips or stories related to their own track experiences that might be helpful to me as a first-timer?

I just wanted to drop a quick update on my experiences with the Microsoft Zune 120.  Four months later, the amount of dust that has accumulated under the device’s screen has become intolerable, and I have decided to send it in.  Fortunately, Microsoft is willing to replace the unit free of charge because of this dust, and they sent me a packing label so that I could drop it off at the local UPS store, which I did on Monday.  It’s also possible to print the label out online.

It took approximately 10 days for the label to arrive from the date that I made the phone call, so I am wary of the amount of time the actual replacement process is going to take.  I will keep updating as to the speediness and quality of Microsoft’s customer service regarding this issue.  I will also take steps to protect my new Zune from suffering the same dusty fate.

Having abandoned satellite radio and requiring a new form of audio entertainment for my automobile, I decided to finally invest in a sizeable MP3 player. While I had owned a number of 2 gigabyte and smaller devices over the years, I knew that in order to match the depth and breadth of music that XM used to provide me with I would require something with a high capacity hard drive. I briefly investigated in-car storage options, thinking that they would be a more elegant solution than a portable unit, but I quickly discovered that this is one sector of the automotive audio market that seems to have died on the vine.

My remaining big-gig choices were either an iPod, a rather expensive and somewhat sketchy beta-version 100 gig no-name unit or a Microsoft Zune. As I didn’t trust the no-name brand in terms of support and have never been impressed with either iTunes or the interface that comes with an iPod, I made a deal with the corporate devil and embraced the Zune. As an aside, I find it vaguely unsettling that in order to usurp the iPod hegemony it is necessary to go with an ‘outsider’ device produced by probably the most faceless super-corporation of all time. How quickly rebellion has become commoditized, on both sides.

I chose the 120 gig version of the Zune, which came in black monolithic form from my local Best Buy, along with a charger and a docking kit. The screen is sufficiently large – 3.2 inches – and it weighs just under 5 ounces. I have no trouble slipping the unit in my pocket at the gym or placing it on a no-slip mat on the console of my car. The Zune uses a small, circular up / down / left / right pad at its base in order to navigate through onscreen menus, and a back and play / pause button are provided on either side.

For someone like me, one of the most crucial aspects of an mp3 player is just how easy it is to load music onto it. I would have preferred a simple drag-and-drop interface from Windows Explorer, similar to a portable hard drive. Unfortunately, Microsoft has not enabled the Zune with this type of functionality and forces users to go through their proprietary software interface. Basically, you configure it to look at where your mp3’s are stored on your hard drive and it loads them into its music manager. From there you can add albums and tracks from their online store and transfer all of your music to the device itself.

I quickly discovered that even loading a list of your tracks into the Zune software would alter the files on your hard drive, most irritatingly their ‘last modified on’ date, making them impossible to sort chronologically in Explorer from that point onward. To get around this, I created a specific folder where I kept the music I intended to transfer to the device, resulting in a temporary duplication of my music collection but keeping the source files safe from MS tampering.

Naturally, given the low-rent characteristics of the vehicle – it had been purchased as cheap winter transportation, although it was later converted into a fire-breathing sleeper-mobile – I was reluctant to invest too much money into a stereo system.

At first I made do with a portable MP3 player and a terribly inaccurate FM transmitter, but this was stolen during a smash and grab whilst the car was parked outside of my loft. Forced into reviewing my musical options, I made the plunge into the shiny new world of satellite radio.

In Canada, where I was living at the time, satellite radio had not yet been approved by our regulatory agency, the CRTC, which controls all television and radio broadcasts within the country. This meant that I had to make use of my American address to avail myself of a gray market XM account. The slick little device clipped onto my heater vent and used a powerful built-in transmitter to link up with my early 80’s FM head unit.

It didn’t take long for me to fall in love. XM had dedicated DJ’s who labored tirelessly, putting together excellent sets filled with tracks that were rarely if ever played on the tired terrestrial radio formats that had caused me to give up on that form of broadcasting. As someone who had been very active in college radio, I could appreciate the deep playlists, as well as the specialty channels devoted to old school hip hop and trance. That the entire thing was also commercial-free was a definite plus, and the monthly fee was low enough to be almost negligible.

There was simply no way to duplicate the breadth of musical offerings provided by my XM account, and I became an overnight evangelist for satellite radio. Soon enough, my friends and family were the recipients of accounts for birthdays and Christmas, and I spent many a happy road trip flipping back and forth between excellent tunes and NHL play-by-play.

It was with great sadness this past Fall that I received notification via email that what I had long feared as a result of the XM / Sirius merger had finally come to pass. Sirius took the lead role in the combined company’s programming and overnight 80% of my favorite musical channels had been wiped off the digital dial. Most of these had no replacement, with electronic music and hip hop suffering the most.

A few new rock stations appeared, but after a week of listening it became clear that the new entity that had absorbed both satellite competitors could not match the depth of XM’s previous playlists. Repeats abounded, as did single-artist channels that played nothing but AC/DC, Metallica, or Led Zeppelin 24 hours a day – kind of like a CD changer stuck on repeat.

There was of course an uproar amongst subscribers, but with little other option than to cancel our accounts, our hands were tied. XM and Sirius had made their decision to homogenize a large portion of their content in an effort to entice a demographic that was far more similar to listeners standard terrestrial services than the eclectic mix that had attracted me in the first place. That their executives talked openly of this decision and derided special interest ‘music snobs’ in the media only served to rub salt in the wound.

After careful consideration I decided that I wasn’t interested in paying for what essentially amounted to format-driven radio that I could get for free over the airwaves. I canceled my account and decided to move to an all-MP3 car stereo setup. After about a month of research, I ended up moving to the dark side and purchase a Microsoft Zune. I’ve detailed my experiences with the Zune in another post.

I regret no longer having access to the vast musical world that XM once offered me, and I pine for the chance to hear my favorite hockey announcers call a game while I am driving somewhere late at night. However, I know that what I really miss is something that I can never have again, as the XM that I knew and loved has been put out to pasture.

Has anyone else experienced the same sad satellite radio withdrawal that I have?