Ok folks here’s my dilemma what do you think?

Ok folks here’s my dilemma. What do you think?

Ok so that title maybe a tad bit self deceiving. I know what I want. I’ve been saying I wanted it for 3 generations of iPads now. I’ve always felt that it(this iPad that I’m blogging on )was just a little too big to be really useful as a portable device.

Now don’t get me wrong I love it. As I loved the original as well as the ipad2.

My point is the same now as its always been-it was too big. But now that the iPad mini is a reality. What do I do?

I would’ve loved to jump on it and get one when it was launched. But. Unfortunately the mini that apple released is inferior to the new iPad with retina that I currently own.

It’s basically an iPad 2 that shrunk.

Come on apple. Really now. I’m sure it was a good move business wise, but it has left me And I’m sure many other of your fans, disgruntled to say the least. I’m sure they’ll improve and eventually perfect it(retina,superior processor etc). That’s what apple does best

But in the mean while, while I wait patiently, I hope

Here’s the other part of the dilemma

Do I buy a Verizon 4g model or do I go with. Wifi only version for $130 less????

The new iPad that I currently on is a 4g LTE version. Previously I had only owned the wifi only versions.

It is nice to have the always present connection instead of having to rely on wifi, or the unreliable signal from my verizon hotspot

But the issue with that is that syncing between devices. Photo stream etc. won’t work between my iPad and iPhone as long as I’m using the ‘personal hotspot’ on my iPad as the 4g wifi hotspot.

I understand that verizon has a new 4g hotspot out called ‘jet pack’. So if any1 has any experience with that device please let me know.

Or here’s the kicker. Should I buy a wifi only ipad mini. Keep my new iPad and continue to use it as my wifi signal via its personal hotspot.

I’m starting to think that might be the winning combination. So if I can stand it. Ill wait till March of next year when hopefully the iPhone 5s comes out and see if they are bringing out an improved iPad mini. 😉

Free Wi-Fi: Should it be free or are we getting spoiled

Free wi-Fi. Should it be free or are we getting spoiled. We’ve all seen one or more of these signs advertising free Wi-Fi at restaurants, coffee shops, libraries etc. In addition if your a trucker. (If you drive a truck). I say truckers but some drivers don’t call themselves that so I clarified. If your a trucker you’ve most likely seen one or more of these signs at Iowa rest areas( I’m sure there are other states that do it too) but that was the one that came to my mind. McDonalds w/ truck parking, certain truck stops. Mostly smaller independent ones except for Sapp brothers. They offer free wi-Fi if you happen to be lucky enough to stop at one of their locations in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois or Pennsylvania. But other than that we are expected to pay,with money or points, for the wi-Fi service.

Is that really fair to ask us truckers to pay for wi-fi simply because we are truck drivers and have to park in certain places, mostly truck stops. Is it. In my humble opinion it’s not fair.

I look at it in much the same way as I look at paying for apps. As a friend once tweeted me “they have us trained wrong on apps. Music was never free. ” He was of course referring to the fact that I had no hesitation whatsoever in paying to download music from iTunes (the music was never free he was referring to was from back in the day when we would go to the record store to purchase music whether that be on vinyl, cassette or more recently CD’s )but I was reluctant to download an app,unless it was free. They used to all be free for the most part,or at least that’s my understanding of it. Again if I’m wrong feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this post.

Or maybe I’m just becoming a cheapskate, like some of my twitter buddies. Call me what you will. Agree with me or have your own opinion. That’s what the comment section down below is for. I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject.

This is certainly not a new thing. Pilot, Flying J, TA, Petro and Loves, they have all been charging us to use their wifi service for as long as, we’ll at least as long as I’ve been driving.

However I know that you can use your driver reward points to pay for it now instead of cash money(credit/debit cards). So that’s just as good as free. Right? Sort of. Well I guess that all depends on how you look at it and how you usually use your reward points.

Personally if I did that I would still consider myself paying for it, but at least the cash money wouldn’t be coming out of my bank account. So I guess that’s some sort of consolation. Or is it? Like I said you can and should leave me your comments down below.

The reason that I’m writing this blog is because it came to my attention earlier today. Me and the wife had driven to the Flying J in Aurora CO, after a delivery. To park and wait for our next load assignment.

I took this iPad and my iPhone, of course, into Denny’s with me. I was expecting to use their free wi-Fi to work on my blog and also I had an update available for an app on my iPhone which required wi-Fi to download,since it was over 50mb.

I really don’t like that Verizon policy(having to use wifi to download an app over 50mb) either but I see it as the lesser of two evils I certainly wouldn’t want to have to deal with the other big player who’s only claim to fame seems to be “you can talk and surf the web at the same time using your iphone on our network.”

Ooh wow excuse me if I’m not impressed. LMFAO

I could have turned on this iPads personal hotspot to use as wifi on my iPhone. But I figured if I could get it free inside why use up part of my data allowance that I pay verizon for.
Which brings another subject to mind but I’m going to save that for another post.

Like I was saying before I got off on that tangent to my dismay the only wi-fi signal available to me inside Denny’s was the flying j wifi. Which like I said we are expected to pay for. The reason I expected to get the free signal from Denny’s is that they usually offer it in their restaurant unless they are in a flying j. I suspect the reasoning for that is that Pilot, who now owns all the J’s, won’t allow it because they want to force us to pay for their wifi. I’m sure I’m correct on that point. However I have on occasion still found the Denny’s free wifi still available in some of the flying j locations. I’d share with you but at the moment memory escapes me.

Anyway I just though I’d share with you my thoughts on the subject and ask for your comments. I had another subject, a dilemma if you will that I wanted to share with you. But since I’ve recently learned it makes for a better blog if you stay on point, in other words from now on instead of writing my multi subject blogs. Ill try to stay on point and just write a separate blog post if I have something else to discuss with you or enlighten you with. LMFAO

Stay safe out there truckers. driverchrismc
Chris McFadden

TTTR04.03.2012 with a special tumblr pictorial and my paper.li

Welcome back to this weeks #truckertuesday twitter recap.

Unless you won the mega millions this weekend and been off the grid for a few days. You undoubtedly already know that I am writing this weeks blog on my brand new iPad which runs on Verizon’s 4G LTE service. Which to say the least is amazing. I ran some speed tests on my new iPad as well as my other devices(so that you could see the difference). Those are posted on my tumblr blog

Glad you came back and I hope you were as impressed as I am with those 4G LTE speeds.

Folks this new iPad is blazing. Almost literally. That brings me to this point(I threw this part in to be fair). I am 98.6% satisfied with my new 3rd generation iPad. Way to throw us a curve on that one apple. It should’ve logically been called the ipad3. But it wasn’t. Guess that’s why my name isn’t Tim Cook.

Anyway my point being the 1.4% that I’m not totally satisfied with

First off the smart cover which I mentioned in an earlier blog as the best feature of the ipad2. It doesn’t turn the new iPad on and off as it was originally designed to do. Something about the polarity of the magnets.

Secondly we have, what is being called “heat gate”. Yes it is true it gets a little hotter than normal when charging or when you are using the mobile hotspot function. But that has been reasonably explained by apple. It is due to the larger sized battery in the device, which is necessary to run the awesome 4G LTE speed. If you are lucky enough to have the Verizon 4G LTE model.

The final thing that makes me not totally satisfied with it is ‘photo stream’. Which was a part of iCloud, a feature that apple gave to us in ios5. Ok here’s the deal with that. It is designed to keep your photos in sync between your devices(iPhone,iPad). It only works when both of the devices are using the same wifi signal.
Now since I replaced my Mifi device with the mobile hotspot feature of the new iPad. My iPhone is running on wifi courtesy of the new iPad. But the iPad itself is running on Verizon’s 4G LTE. As a result photo stream won’t work. Oh well no big hairy deal.

So should these minor drawbacks stop you from buying a new iPad. Certainly not IMHO

The retina display. It’s resolutionary , according to apple.com, the 5mp iSight camera, the ultra fast 4G LTE(again that’s just for us verizon customers)

There are more than enough reasons why I would recommend the new iPad.

Anyway enough of that. Apples not paying me to recommend their products. Although sometimes I think they should. Lmfao

As usual I would like to thank some folks for their RTs of my blog last week. @BTDTruckingjobs @HTDTruckingjobs my wife @tammymcfadden and @toddmccann

And a special word of thanks goes out to Heather@trkrsvoice who in addition to the blog RT has also posted a link to DriverChrismc.com on her Dark side of trucking website

Also on her website you may now find Todd’s rumblings as well as a link to his blog

Well I’ve said my piece for the week. As far as the actual TTTR part of this blog please read my paper.li

Ok now that you’ve read my paper and come back let me explain. I chose the paper format because it’s more professional looking.

Ok honestly folks I did it because it saves me time and well let’s face it I’m lazy.

That’s all for this week hope you enjoyed it and I hope you will be back for next weeks edition. Until then drivers Be Safe out there.

This blog was written in its entirety on my new iPad. All material used in it was either my own intellectual property or gathered on twitter by paper.li and the respective tweeters were credited.

Any comments suggestions or submissions may be sent to me by email driverchrismc@gmail.com

TTTR 03.20.2012

Your gonna love this first part i know i do
Ok folks here we go it’s Friday afternoon. Im on the way down to Nogales from Albuquerque to pickup our next load in the morning. I was thinking while I was driving. So then I stopped. Cause well I had to stop at a rest area and I hear tell that it is now illegal for us truck drivers to text while driving. I can only assume that would apply to twitter as well.

Anyway I was going to put all this on twitter. But then I thought. Wait. This is way more than 140 characters and you would all have to read your timelines backwards. So I put it here.

I was gonna start by saying EXCUSE ME MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE NO don’t worry this is not the lyric to a slim shady(Eminem) song. So if you are over the age of 25. Please keep reading. I promise your safe. Well my next tweet would have been. Thank you that’s better. Now that I have your attention I wanted to let you know that I’ve started work on next weeks blog already. Mainly because I’m getting older and have early Alzheimer’s or as I like to call it CRS. if you don’t know what that means. Send me a DM and I’ll spell it out for you.
Like I said I was driving and thinking of ideas for the blog and what usually happens is if I wait a week to write it down I’ll forget my brilliant ideas.
I was going to tweet that I was going to give you a rare inside glimpse of next weeks blog
I wanted to let y’all know that it would include what I like to call my list of UNusual suspects. Confused? Don’t be. Let me explain. If I may ramble on. Gotta be careful here I’m becoming a little bit too much like Todd ‘long winded’ McCann LMFAO
Anyway my list That’s my blanket way of referring to people on twitter, friends, publications, organizations or anyone who as helped me with this blog. They are names that I @mention on a regular basis. They all either RT my tweets. Mention my blog, post a link on their Facebook page, or website, or post my photos. I was going to let you know that I was adding a couple new names to the list. That list is pretty much anyone that strokes my ego and that’s a pretty big job. Believe me I’m one of the most egotistical arrogant bastards you’ll ever meet. I’m number one and i know it. People in four wheelers tell me everyday that’s a truck drivers joke.

But then I thought. No I can’t do that. Surely I will offend someone’s delicate sensibilitys because they come after someone else. Or they’ll think their special because their listed first. So no list. Well now wait a minute. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I can list them alphabetically. Let’s face it the alphabet has always been the same 26 letters in exactly the same order and is often the basis for creating lists
I was also going to tweet that next weeks blog was going to be a little more me and a little more snarky than usual
Oh and one more thing. Thanks Steve.
That inside glimpse I promised you
I’m pretty sure you just read it haha

So anyway. Wait for it. Wait for it. Saturday Sunday Monday ok now it’s Tuesday and you can read my blog. And it goes a little something like this.

Welcome back friends, followers,enemies. I don’t really care who you are as long as your reading my blog
I’ll start off this week by thanking @challengemagwho tweeted last week that I had a sweet trucking blog. That was seconded by @todaystruckingthank you as well as @HTDTruckingjobsAndrea tweeted This was great! thank you!
And to all those who Retweeted or read and commented on my blog THANKS!!!

Anyway here’s that list I promised you earlier @alanqbristol, @BTDTruckingJobs, @ChallengeMag, @darksaff. I could’ve used Eric’s real name. Wouldn’t have changed the order of the list. @hnldriver,@HTDTruckingJobs,@lifeotr, @raysunshine77, @tachoblog,@toddmccann
We met @toddmccann last Wednesday evening 4 a tweet up at the flyin hook in Amarillo TX
We had a good meal at Denny’s
Good conversation I thought but according to todd it was “interesting. Three people with their faces buried in their iPhones “HaHa! My wife @tammymcfadden thinks he’s funny. Funny HaHa! Not funny queer>;;;;;;;;>;;;;;;;;said in my best Billy Bob Thornton voice.

Anyway now I know the best kept secret on twitter. He drives for…….???

You won’t here it from me. Especially not you Eric @darkstaff
I had to swear an oath in blood not to tell you he’s with JB H…
Oops!

No really he’s not. He has a good reason for not revealing his company.
So as a man of my word. I won’t reveal my friends secret.

As you might have guessed we discussed twitter over dinner. Who woulda guessed that LMFAO
I also asked @toddmccann if I was doing something wrong. I remarked that I could no longer post more than one picture at a time on twitter. He agreed it was maddening and support couldn’t give him a good answer as to why.
UPDATE. @Toddmccann figured it out Sunday morning and sent me an email. All we had 2 do was change our settings in #tweetbot to use an image upload service other than twitter or twitpic. I’m using img.ly. And it works hallelujah.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

Oddly enough we hardly talked about trucking at all-strange 4 a table with 3 truck drivers
We talked about all sorts of different things. Like other twitter friends we had in common, vampire movies, light sabers, being geeks rather than nerds, the new iPad and the list goes on

In particular the new 3rd generation iPad. Will Todd get an iPad? Will the evil overlord,that’s Todd’s wife in case y’all been livin under a rock and didn’t know, get a new iPad. I really can’t say. But as for me I can say I’m startin 2 warm up 2 the idea. Especially now that I found out the Verizon 4g model have a 4g hotspot at no extra charge. It will of course count towards your data limit. so really it’s not free it just doesn’t cost you any extra

That option is particularly appealing to me since my 4g Mifi is about as unreliable as I don’t know what. I think my old 3G Mifi worked better sometimes or maybe I’m just using that as an excuse to get a new iPad. Either way. That’s my story n I’m stickin to it. LMFAO

But no folks I won’t stand in line on launch day to get one, I’ll wait at least a week or till my birthday on the 24th. I’ll be 41. I wasn’t going to announce that but @tammymcfadden already put me on blast on twitter

But anyway enough of me On with the #truckertuesday twitter recap. If I’m not careful here I’ll end up bein as long winded as you know who JK LMFAO

Good news for truckers as U.S. Senate passes highway bill http://t.co/cb8LNa8z via The Vindicator

by ChallengeMag at 3/15/12 12:47 PM

(Source: http://twitter.com/ChallengeMag/status/180364663291252736)

Rob W (@hnldriver)
3/15/12 12:24 AM
I’ve just updated my site: thetrucker.yolasite.com

Didn’t know he had a site but we all do now

New iPad confirmed to sport 1GB of RAM and 1 GHz CPU: Tinhte, the Vietnamese tech blog who got its hands of the … http://t.co/lqJsicMs

by iPhone_News at 3/13/12 1:30 PM

(Source: http://twitter.com/iPhone_News/status/179620462907764737)

Camera+ 3 is Out and Here is the Gigantic Change List: Camera+ 3 is out a day earlier than expected, and the lis… http://t.co/dDSnTjar

by iPhone_News at 3/13/12 1:30 PM
I LOVE THIS APP THINK @darkstaff and @toddmccann would both agree with me
(Source: http://twitter.com/iPhone_News/status/179620480309919744)
As a matter of fact Eric@darkstaff tweeted us this link:
RT @iOSPhotoApps: “Camera+ Goes To 3.0” http://t.co/iIStlyql #Camera+ #iphoneography <;;;;;;;<;;;;;;;Sweet. #fb

by darkstaff at 3/13/12 10:01 AM

(Source: http://twitter.com/darkstaff/status/179567949206659072)

Speaking of #camera+. I found out, while waiting on my wife in the ER, by googling yours truly @driverchrismc that all of the #camera+ photos I’ve shared on twitter are available on http://campl.us/user/DriverChrisMc. Pretty cool. It made a website for me I didn’t know I had!!!

Andrea also let us know on twitter>;;;;;;;>;;;;;;; Here are some apps for your phone that can help on the road http://t.co/i9EwIsmr Food, gas, audio books, & speed traps!

by HTDTruckingJobs at 3/13/12 10:56 AM Thanks Andrea

(Source: http://twitter.com/HTDTruckingJobs/status/179581596389736448)

Oh BTW let me go back to tooting my own horn 4 a minute. My wife and I are slated to be driver profiled in the may edition of Challenge Magazine as I was informed in the following email
Hi Chris,

We’re hoping to have you as the driver profile for the May issue of Challenge Magazine. Do you have any high-resolution photos of your wife and you with your truck? If you could send a couple, that would be great. It’s always nice for the art department to have some choices.

Thanks again for being one of our driver profiles!
Amanda

Amanda Jakl
Assistant Editor
Social Media Manager

Well that’s all I can come up with for now,as I sit here at the flying hook in Albuquerque
And my Mifi signal isn’t the greatest here, kinda frustrating for what should be 4g!

So anyway where was I in my story oh yeah. B4 we left for California and Todd got on his way 2 Houston. I decided to take a picture of us in front of his truck. Just in case y’all were still wondering who he drives for.

As usual this blog was written on my ipad2 using info gathered on twitter. Please leave your comments below. Till next week. Be Safe Drivers.