Category: Promoted

Usually stuff I’ve written personally, stuff I think is pretty good.

  • The Xiaomi M365 Electric Scooter

    The Xiaomi M365, all folded up.

    Here’s something interesting about the M365. Xiaomi advertises that there’s an app you can connect your electric scooter to, to see your current speed, the remaining mileage, and other current trip statistics. One page of the completely Chinese manual says you can download Xiaomi’s own app or use something called “Ninebot”.

    I couldn’t find the Xiaomi app in the Australian App Store when I went to look, but I found the Ninebot app on the first go. It’s pretty basic, but does let you rename your electric scooter and adjust the level of regenerative breaking. But hang on a second, this all seems very weird. How does a Chinese manufactured and marketed scooter, with not a word of English in the user manual, works with an app that has near-perfect English? Something doesn’t add up here.

    After doing a little internet sleuthing, I discovered Ninebots were originally manufactured by a Chinese company as a kind of personal mobility device. They’re kind of like Segways, except a little more discreet and don’t have the traditional Segway handlebar design. Still, none of that explains how the M365 is able to connect to the Ninebot app. Did Xiaomi reverse-engineer the app to such a degree that every feature works perfectly with their own electric scooter hardware, down to the regenerative braking setting and the cruise control mode?

    As it turns out, Ninebot is a Xiaomi-backed company. It’s perhaps one of the simplest explanations for why the M365 works with the Ninebot app; being the parent company and all, you’d hardly want to go to the trouble of developing an entirely new app when one of your subsidiaries already has something that does exactly what you’re after. It’s not perfect (the Ninebot app doesn’t recognise my M365 as an valid Ninebot), but there’s nothing that I’m missing out on that I can see. My KMs even count towards the weekly and overall distance travelled leaderboards.

    What does all of this have to do with Segway? Well, Segway complained to a US trade commission that several Chinese companies were infringing on its patents. They complained in September 2014, and not a year later, they were acquired by the Xiaomi-backed Ninebot in August 2015, which is all pretty hilarious when you think about it.

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  • The Haul From An Impromptu Malaysia Trip

    I wouldn’t say I go looking for cool stuff. It’s not as if I’m methodically searching through every retail outlet or corner store for that extra special piece. But by virtue of my curated RSS and Twitter feeds, all relevant to my interests, I’m always peripherally aware of cool things, and sometimes I go looking.

    A recent impromptu trip to Malaysia for the funeral of my grandfather was hardly the ideal time for shopping. Reflection, perhaps, either on the traditional Chinese funeral, or the grandfather I didn’t really know, but somehow, we still managed to make the trips to Aeon. Almost every day we were there.

    It was in Aeon’s shopping complex that I first saw the Pikachu and Eevee. Not sure if it was cool or not, I borrowed my sister’s internet to look it up. Apparently, it was a promo that was only available via some kind of lottery system at Pokémon Centres in Japan in 2013. I’m entirely unconvinced that what I purchased is the real deal as the box text is slightly different, but eh, it’s a pretty good fake… that I later discovered was super-common, after finding it at a few other shops.

    Later in the trip I found myself at KLIA2 more than twelve hours before my flight was scheduled to depart. We were dropping off my sister, and after that was done, there was still over six hours to kill before check-in opened, and another eight before my flight was scheduled. We took the KLIA Ekspres to KL Central, then a taxi to Mid Valley Megamall.

    We go to Megamall basically every time we’re in KL. Truth be told, I was beginning to get a little sick of the place, even if I’ve found some cool Dota-2 stuff there before. Alas, the gaming store that was there before wasn’t there any more, replaced with yet another gaming store that had nothing that was particularly interesting. I thought about picking up the Hypebeast edition CS:GO Steelseries mousepad, if I didn’t find anything else that piqued my interest elsewhere in the mall.

    But it was on the recently-refurbished (at least, I think it was recently-refurbished, it definitely wasn’t like that the last time we were there in 2015) fourth floor that I found a small gaming store. They didn’t have as much stock as some of the larger stores, but their shelves were crammed with all kinds of gaming gear. And on one of those shelves, the SteelSeries Rival 100, Dota 2 Special Edition.

    It was only afterwards that I learned these were originally sold at the Shanghai Major Secret Shop, and later released worldwide. But I’ve never seen it posted online anywhere, so stumbling on it was completely by chance.

    Last but not least, I happened to know that Uniqlo in the US offers Nintendo-themed tees. I’ve never seen them at an Australian Uniqlo, but a quick recon of the Uniqlo at KLIA2 revealed that Asian Uniqlo stores stocked the Nintendo-themed tees. With the hours dwindling, I made one last stop and picked up a Pikachu-themed tee from the collection, completing this trips haul.

    It’d be a misnomer to say cool stuff finds me. I’m always on the lookout for that next exclusive, unique piece that will somehow make my life that little more fulfilled — if only momentarily — but sometimes, that necessitates a little looking. And most of the time, I’m glad I did.

  • Simplicity is dead, long live Simplicity!

    Back in August 2013, I wrote about the simple, it-just-works mentality of Apple products. I was experimenting with dd-wrt at the time, and once I had worked out that it definitely wasn’t the simple option, went out and bought an Apple AirPort Extreme to serve our family’s NBN connection to every device in the house capable of communicating via TCP/IP.

    And for a while, everything was great. The AirPort Extreme dished out fast, reliable Wi-Fi, just like it says on the box. A few years pass without incident, and when I move to a different state, I trust that my network setup is robust enough to require zero maintenance. But soon enough, my family begins to complain about internet issues. Unfortunately for me, the kinds of issues they describe necessitate an in-person visit to ascertain what the issue actually is.

    I’m back in Hobart now, and the Wi-Fi situation is even worse than I imagined. I realise something is seriously wrong when I try connecting to the Wi-Fi. For some reason, the wireless network is broadcasting its SSID even though I’ve set it to be hidden. It also tells me the password is wrong, even though I, nor anyone else, has changed it since it was setup. I ask my parents more questions about it. We give it a reboot and leave it at that. I’ll need to witness a failure to figure out what’s wrong, not have it broken to begin with.

    As luck would have it, the Wi-Fi dies a short time later. And that’s pretty much all I have to go on, given that I don’t have any other way of connecting to the unit to check it out. All the devices in the house are wireless and don’t have an Ethernet port; any troubleshooting that I was planning to do is severely hampered by the fact I can only connect to it wirelessly.

    I mean, there’s an old XP box that still has one, but I’m not sure I want to try troubleshooting anything from that. My mum has a Surface (Pro?) that has an USB dock with an ethernet port, but I’m loathe to install some potentially dodgy Targus Mac drivers for it on my MacBook Pro. My sister has a MacBook Air, which doesn’t have an Ethernet port, and even my old Chromebook doesn’t come with an Ethernet port. Of course, I own a Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet adapter, but I left it back in Brisbane, and buying another for the sole purpose to diagnosing a Wi-Fi issue seems somewhat wasteful.

    Giving up on diagnosing the issue for now, I ask what my family does when the Wi-Fi stops working. They power-cycle the device, which fixes the issue for anywhere between a few hours or a few days. Given that the Wi-Fi can drop out multiple times a day, that’s kind of an issue. So we power-cycle the unit again, which fixes it until I can work out what’s wrong.

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  • Gutted

    I took this photo the last time I was in Hobart, back in February 2016. By that time, it was about nine or ten months after Next Byte’s parent company had shut down all the Next Byte stores nationally, ending the era of what was once the largest Apple reseller in the southern hemisphere, if not the world. At its peak, Next Byte boasted upwards of 20 stores all around the country, and I spent the tail end of my high school and all of my uni-going years at just one: Next Byte Hobart.

    Today, the Apple landscape is a lot different than it was 10 years ago. We have as many Apple retail stores as we had Next Byte stores, once upon a time, and in a world of slim profits on Apple hardware and a customer experience from the first-party Apple stores that’s impossible to match, any third-party Apple presence is either marginalised enough to fly under the radar or niche enough to carve out a market of their own. For the rest of us, Apple retail stores in every capital city besides Melbourne, Darwin, and Hobart means our in-person sales and service needs are fulfilled, with any gaps filled by Apple’s online presence.

    I have plenty of stories from my time at Next Byte. Maybe one day I’ll even write about a few of them, once I’m a little more comfortable the statute of limitations has passed. But the one I want to tell today is the one of how I got the job in the first place. There was no interview. I didn’t hand over a resume. But somehow, I got the job anyway.

    The date is January 2nd, 2007. Ten years to the day.

    I’ve been thinking about it for months now. I was promised a job after completing my work experience, but that was back in August last year. Now it’s January, and I’m beginning to question their sincerity. Did they really mean it? Or was it just something said in passing to an impressionable, naive high schooler who was only just beginning to understand the world? Of course, it’s just as plausible that they’ve been busy and have just forgotten.

    Either way, today we’re going to find out. Nothing was open yesterday, being New Year’s Day and all, but there’s no chance they’re not open today.

    I walk in. Half-faking confidence, I approach the manager. I’m not sure of the exact words I said. But it was definitely along the lines of: “hi, my name is Benny. I did work experience here last year, and at the end of it, I was promised a job. But I haven’t heard from you in several months, so now I’m here to claim in person.”

    He said to give him a moment, then he disappeared behind a door.

    A few minutes passed.

    When he reappeared, he came up to me and said: “can you start tomorrow?”

    The rest, as they say, is history.

  • The Logitech MX Master

    According to the dates I just punched into Wolfram Alpha, it’s been over 20 months since Logitech released the MX Master. I’ve wanted their flagship consumer wireless mouse for almost as long, and as of earlier this week, am now the proud owner of a MX Master of my very own.

    The last time I looked for a wireless mouse replacement, it was out of necessity. An attempted cleaning and repair of a scrolling issue on my old Logitech Anywhere MX may have merely exacerbated or outright sparked a tracking issue, but regardless of what happened, the end result was that tracking became awful. So awful, in fact, it rendered the mouse inoperable, with replacement the only recourse. After examining the pros and cons of different models, I procured a replacement of the exact same model, and everything was hunky-dory.

    Then Logitech released the MX Master, and I immediately knew what my next mouse was going to be. The MX Master is everything the Anywhere MX was, for the most part, and had enough of the features that I liked about it that I’d consider it an upgrade. The argument could be made that some aspects are compromises in one way or another, or even side-grades, but what about the overall package?

    MX Master on the left, Anywhere MX on the right. Pikachu in the back.

    For starters, the MX Master is almost twice the size of the Anywhere MX. It’s also nicely sculpted for right-handed usage, and probably ergonomically “better”, whatever that means. Because of how much taller the mouse is, the “palm” part of the mouse where it meets your palm is much further off the surface of the desk than I’m used to, which means using a fingertip grip isn’t as easy as it was the Anywhere MX. It’s partly because the diminutive size of the Anywhere MX lent itself to being used with a fingertip as much as it did with a palm grip, and partly because the larger size and shape of the MX Master means you’re more inclined to use it with a palm-style grip. While you could use a fingertip grip with the MX Master, the position and placement of the vertical scroll wheel, as forward as it is on the mouse, means that you either need longer fingers or position your entire hand further up on the mouse in more of a palm grip.

    While I’ve always been a “fingertip grip” user for the mouse that I use with my Mac (my primary computer which gets used for everything bar gaming), I’ve always used a palm grip when gaming. I suspect that I’ll get used to palming the mouse that I use for general web browsing, but for now it’s a little awkward, especially given the vertically asymmetrical design of the mouse which means that it’s not quite a standard palm grip. For now, even trying to wrap my hand around the entire mouse feels incredibly awkward. The “ridge” of the mouse — the thickest part of the mouse — that sits underneath the knuckle of your index finger feels far too large, and I’m yet to find a comfortable position when gripping the mouse. It’s possible that my hands are too small for the larger size of the MX Master, but on the other hand (pun not intended), maybe I’m just holding it wrong.

    As much as I used to like the fact that the Anywhere MX used AA batteries, over the months it became apparent that having to charge AA batteries and always keeping some charged spares for when the ones I was using in the mouse died was all a bit of an inconvenience. If the rechargeable Li-ion pack in the MX Master means I don’t have to deal with scrambling to find some charged AAs right when I need them most, then I’m all for it. Hopefully the quick charge time of the MX Master also means I’ll be able to plug the mouse in for a minute or two to get me enough charge to last me through a quick browsing session, too.

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  • Well Wrapped Christmas Gift Giving Materialism

    I enjoy wrapping presents. There’s something about the methodical nature that appeals to me. There’s a lot that goes into it, and it’s not just about choosing an appropriately festive wrapping paper. It’s about making sure the wrapping paper has as few creases as possible, that any application of sticky tape fits into the overall wrapping aesthetic, and that all your creases and folds are deliberate to produce a well-wrapped gift.

    There’s something special about a well-wrapped gift, because it means someone has put as much thought into the presentation as much as they have the contents. Even if it’s just going to be torn apart and ripped to shreds by the recipient, a well-wrapped gift can say a lot about you as a person.

    Imagine my disappointment when a shopping centre gift-wrapping volunteer did a truly average job of wrapping a rectangular prism, arguably the easiest package of all to wrap. The wrapping paper was nice enough and all, but the wrapping itself was sloppy; not carefully wrapped, but a perfect rectangular prism turned into an almost shapeless form, with no edges visible, air gaps, and bunched up wrapping paper all over the place. I would’ve thought that they’d have some practice at wrapping given the number of shoppers, but maybe that wasn’t the case. At least my donation went to charity.

    Choosing gifts is fun, too. The IT department at work did a “stealing santa” this year, which is kind of like secret santa, except you’re buying a gift for every participant instead of an individual. The $15-20 limit on presented a challenge in terms of what to get, because I wanted to get something that was serious and a joke. The perfect gift!

    But then I decided that full cheese was the go, so the hunt began. Sadly, an IT-related “for dummies” book was outside of the budget, as was the book of Kim Kardashian selfies. I ruled out a neon-coloured rock-painting kit (including rocks), a bright green WTF pillow, and even the book of Kim Kardashian quotes was ruled out due to being under budget. I eventually settled on a harmonica, which turned out to be a surprise hit (maybe one of the older guys wanted it for their kids or something, I don’t know). I’ve always wanted one, and going off the advice of the organiser who said that you could absolutely get something that you wanted, I eventually settled on it as my secret santa gift. I ended up with a box of Roses, which was good enough for me.

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Benny Ling's Bling

Computers are like a bicycle for our minds.