On the mac she’s been using NeoOffice as kind of a left over from when I had her set up on a Windows machine using OpenOffice. Now I’d like to get to moved over to Pages as well. The problem is that she has all of these files in the Open Office format. What I’d like to know is if there is an easy way to move those files over to the Pages file format?

I noticed that the Open Office format can be opened in TextEdit and from there I guess it could be saved as an RTF. However that seems a little too labor intensive. Is there a Automator workflow or an AppleScript out there that would solve this problem?

Recently in Israel there have been extremists on the offensive. These “ultra-orthodox” Jews are protesting, violently some times, for certain things. What they want is women to dress according to their standards and have a separation between the genders on public transportation.

As someone who is an observant Jew (I guess you can call me “ultra-orthodox” but I hate labels like that) I am disgusted and embarrassed by these protests. Thankfully more people, who have more pull than I do are starting to speak out about these people. I would also like to point out that these people don’t represent what Judaism is about. As I mentioned in a previous post, Judaism is about living with people and being respectful of their differing views.

Reading about stuff like this makes me embarrassed to call myself Jewish.

I decided to sell my iPad and use and keep my Kindle Fire.  After doing a lot of thinking on the subject I figured that I can do everything that I need to with my kindle fire and it was smaller and lighter.  since I was mainly using the iPad as a consumption device it just made sense to switch to something that was later and did the same things. It’s not that I dislike the iPad and anyway the strip it’s just that this is what worked for me of course your mileage may vary like I said in the previous post.

There’ve been some criticisms of the Kindle Fire which I find quite interesting. The first one is the fact that it did not add any of the Google apps although it is in the android device. This complaint was mainly from a lot of the more techie blogs such as Gizmodo and Engadget and The Verge but I have to disagree with their assessment. The Kindle Fire is in Amazon device that just happens to run the Android operating system. It’s not a device that is Google specific; if anything it is Amazon specific. This is something that is really stressed with Amazon because if you look at any of their advertising or even their marketing on the web or elsewhere there is no mention of android anywhere. Not only that but Amazon has its own Android store and Google does not recognize the Kindle as an Android device and you can’t use apps from their Android market place. This is even the case if you go into the candle fire settings and set up that you can install apps from anywhere the android marketplace will not recognize your device.

The Kindle Fire perfect? Of course not. It does suffer from some stuttering and lack a of smoothness in the interface.  I think the most annoying thing for me is the fact that the carousel you really need to be exact when you need to get that otherwise you constantly go back and forth between the app before and the app after it. Even with those problems I still see it as a Android issue and a Kindle Fire issue.

Finally, I wanted to address the question of whether or not the kindle fire is a direct competitor to the iPad.  In a limited way, it is a competitor. However I think that Amazon is more interested in pushing their products although from the website then pushing the Kindle Fire into more people’s hands.  So, even though it can do almost everything that the iPad can do I still don’t think that it is a direct competitor to the iPad.  Then again, I have never subscribed to this theory that there could only be one tablet. I don’t see there being a problem with some people having iPads and other people having Kindle fire or another type of tablet.

When I first heard about Amazon’s Kindle Fire being released I was very interested but I decided not to buy one right away because I wanted to wait for the reviews to come out and make my decision based on those reviews. Sadly there was no real consensus about the Fire so I decided to head over to my local Staples and buy one and if I don’t like it I have two weeks to return it and there is no restocking fee. If I did like it, I would sell my iPad and have some extra money.

Let me say that this isn’t going to be a review of the Fire as much as this is going to be my trying to figure out if can replace my iPad. If you’re looking for some good reviews, I suggest visiting Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Engadget or any of the other places that have written reviews. Remember I’m trying to figure out my needs and so your mileage may vary.

Day to Day activities

I look at what my day to day activities on a tablet and it boils down to reading my RSS feeds, checking twitter, reading (and sometimes composing) email, reading, taking notes and playing some games.

Let’s first talk about email since that is a built in application for the Fire. It’s pretty easy to set up the accounts and it receives my email just fine. However it’s pretty bare bones and but it seems to get the job done. I found free applications that will allow me to read my RSS and twitter feeds. If Tweetcaster supported Tweetmarker that would be even better. I also found an app that I can use for my RSS feeds and have it work just the way I like.

As for games, the main game that I need is Words With Friends and that game is available. There are other games that I play but I can play those on my iPhone.

The Intangibles

So far, it seems that the Fire can replace the iPad so what is holding me back from making the switch? For one thing there is one app there isn’t available for the Fire that the iPad has, and that is the app for Optimum Online. It lets me watch TV from my iPad while I’m at home. It’s a great app and one that my daughter and I use when I can’t use the main TV.

There is also the comfort level that iOS provides me with.  On the other hand the Fire is a lot smaller and lighter, making it a lot easier to take on trips and especially the subway.

Conclusion

I don’t really have a conclusion yet. I can see me deciding either way. I guess I’ll give it some more time.

Senate Republicans appear to be serious about creating a long-rumored “Jewish district” in Brooklyn, according to a well-connected Republican source who saw a copy of their draft redistricting maps. The idea, the source said, would be to put as many Orthodox Jewish voters as possible into indicted State Sen. Carl Kruger‘s Senate district. Nobody is counting on Kruger staying in office for long, and Jewish voters helped propel Republican Congressman Bob Turner to a special election victory this fall. In the prospective Senate race, the Republican candidate could also potentially use same-sex marriage as a wedge issue against Councilman Lew Fidler, who supports it and is presumed to be the Democratic candidate for the seat.

I know that gerrymandering has a long history here in the US but I’ve always felt that it’s wrong. The idea that there should be a “safe” seat at any level of politics is just plain wrong. Representatives on any level should be working to build a large consensus among a diverse population, not having the ability to be (re)elected because of their last name or skin color.

On a more personal level is this something that we as Jews should really want? Yes, I know that there are plenty of districts that have been created for a minority or to protect a majority and how does this benefit anyone? We need to learn how to work with everyone and not just become insular. (For the record the congressional district that I live in CD-9 is an example of this and I think it’s wrong. Here is a map to show you what I’m talking about)

Yes, you want to elect someone that shares your values (or at least most of them) but that is what elections are for – to select who you want to represent you. Here in New York it’s hard enough to get someone who isn’t a Democrat elected (which is why Bob Turner winning the congressional seat was such big news) creating a safe seat(s) will make it just impossible for anyone other then whoever is “anointed” to win an election.

Yesterday I had a great customer service experience that I wanted to share. Even before there was an iPhone, I have been a customer of Cingular and then AT&T mobile. The main reason that I decided to use them was because I would be able to get a separate SIM card when I travelled to the UK for business. It worked quite well. Then came the iPhone and I decided to stick with them through the iPhone 4.

That all changed recently when the iPhone 4S came and is now on Sprint. Sprint interested me because of their pricing, it’s cheaper than both AT&T and Verizon and they actually have unlimited data plans which are unlimited (although I never once went over my 2GB limit with AT&T having a real unlimited plan is nice). Doing the research it looked like switching to Sprint would save me roughly $50/month.

I spoke with my business partner and we decided to merge our two accounts into one business account (with 7 lines) and make the jump from AT&T to Sprint. From the moment we started with setting up the business account I was impressed with how our rep went about things. Judy was professional, quick and always ready to help by answering questions or making sure that the processing our account was going smoothly.

The big day finally arrive last Tuesday and we headed over to the Sprint store to get our phones. We were getting 4 iPhones and 3 regular feature phones. There turned out to be one little catch, my iPhone wasn’t going to be there since the 32GB models and higher could only be shipped directly to me. I was OK with that but then Judy got a hold of her district manager and they have a 32GB white model and if I wanted it I could have it but it would be at the store later that day. I decided to take it since I didn’t care about the color and I like my instant gratification.

Transferring the numbers was pretty painless. There were no problems moving the feature phones over and most of the iPhones. However there was a problem with one of the iPhones that customer service fixed rather quickly. The best was yet to come because Sprint was offering a rebate for all number transfers ($50/feature phone and $125/smart phone) and they were also offering a buy back program for the iPhones. This meant that at the store we saved about $600 and we also will be getting a rebate of a similar amount in two months. Not to mention that we are saving $50 per month it was a real win/win. If you add in the excellent service that we got you can add an extra win for a win/win/win!

Oh yeah so far it seems that the cellular service is better with Sprint than we’ve had with AT&T and no dropped calls yet.

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