Author: Scott Gruby

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Review: Kanex iDevice Collapsable Stand

Awhile ago I found a stand I liked for my iPad. Since then, I’ve switched to an iPad mini and the stand no longer fits the iPad. So I looked for a replacement. When the iPad came out, people were using all kinds of things including binder clips to make stands, so I didn’t need anything really complicated. I stumbled upon the Kanex iDevice Collapsable Stand and for the price, what did I have to lose?

The stand is extremely simple and does its job. It is easy to carry and I can throw it in my bag. I used it all the time (more on why I’m no longer using it in another post) and it served its purpose. There isn’t a whole lot to it, and it just works.

Pros

  • Inexpensive.
  • Adjustable.
  • Compact.

Cons

  • None

Summary

If you’re looking for a simple stand, the Kanex stand works well. There are more complex stands out there that cost more money, but I definitely recommend this for anyone looking for a simple stand.

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Review: Shoulderpod S1

On each vacation I’ve taken in the last few years, I’ve taken a compact digital camera along with my iPhone. However, with each iPhone revision, the camera gets so much better that I reconsider my choice to take a camera. The camera has a few features that the iPhone doesn’t have, but the differences are so minor.

The only thing that I seem to miss using the iPhone is simply how it feels and how easy it is to hold. I had read about the Shoulderpod S1 as a grip for the iPhone. I didn’t back it on KIckstarter, but it made it “to the big leagues” as I found it on Amazon.

I ordered it a few days for my last vacation and when it arrived, I adjusted it for my phone and tried it out. Its premise is pretty simple; provide a hand held mount for your smartphone. Operating it is easy; just adjust the screw and put your iPhone in it. I used it for a bunch of shots and being able to hold the phone without the fear of dropping it and being able to stablize it was very convenient. I didn’t take many movies, but the movies I did were less shaky. I also used it to take a timed shot and it worked well mounted on my Gorillapod mount.

The biggest “problem” with the Shoulderpod is that when I had it attached, I couldn’t really fit my phone in my pocket, so I kept taking it off my iPhone and reattaching it. This was a little inconvenient, but I’m not sure it was the fault of the little device.

Pros

  • Makes it easy to hold an iPhone.
  • Supports my iPhone 6 and other smartphones; very adjustable.
  • Standard tripod mount allows it to work with GorillaPod and other tripods.

Cons

  • Some pieces are made out of plastic which made lead to issues down the line with reliability.
  • Taking the Shoulderpod on and off is a little cumbersome and leaving it on doesn’t fit in my pocket.

Summary

The Shoulderpod S1 makes a great addition to any smartphone user that relies exclusively on his or her phone for taking pictures on vacations or even for taking photos and videos of school functions, Holding my hold with just just a few fingers always has me nervous and the Shoulderpod’s grip takes this away and stabilizes pictures. I’m sure others have gotten good at taking smartphone pictures, but I think that the Shoulderpod will make it even easier to take good pictures.

The price isn’t that much and is a good addition to my travel bag. I will need to find a better way to deal with it so that I don’t take it on or off, but I consider that a minor issue.

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Review: Twelve South HiRise Deluxe iPhone Stand

One of themes in my backings on Kickstarter was the search for a stand for my iPhone. Unfortunately none of the products I backed were decent quality and a waste. I’ve read good things about the Twelve South HiRise Deluxe stands and decided to splurge (they’re a bit more expensive than other stands). I was skeptical when I ordered it as the cable wasn’t integrated in the stand and required me to supply my own; this didn’t seem like a great design, but I was willing to give it a shot.

When I got the stand, I was impressed that it was designed for different thickness cases and the holder for the Lightning connector was quite solid. Setup was easy and I adjusted it for my case. I’ve been using it daily since September and it has performed flawlessly. I drop my phone in it and it charges; not much more to say about it. Since I work from home, I leave my phone in the stand most of the time and use Hey Siri to make my conference calls. It is a great angle for viewing and does well for conference calls. I should have gone with this stand instead of backing various Kickstarter projects (however, this stand uses a Lightning connector; I’m not sure it would have worked as well with the 30 pin connector).

Pros

  • Handles different sized cases.
  • Solid (it doesn’t fall over).
  • Good angle and height for holding up iPhone.
  • Doesn’t put extra stress on connector as phone is resting on the stand and not the connector.

Cons

  • A little more expensive than the average stand.

Summary

This is an excellent stand for iPhones with the Lightning connector. I’m not sure how well it would work with the iPad mini like it claims. The cost is probably a little more than most people want to spend on a stand, but it is quite easy to just drop my iPhone into it when I’m at my desk. I’d definitely purchase this again.

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Review: Anker 5-Port USB Charger

These days just about everything is powered by USB, and I never seem to have enough ports to charge the items. If I used individual chargers, I’d have a bunch of chargers on power strips and when I travel, I’d have a bunch of pieces to bring. So, when I started reading about multiple port chargers that would handle iPhones as well as the increased power required for iPads, I was quite intrigued. After further research, some chargers required me to plug iPads into certain ports and other devices into the other ports. This is cumbersome and when I saw the Anker® 40W 5-Port USB Charger where it would intelligently figure out what output is required for each port, I jumped at this.

The charger is pretty compact and its operation is simple, plug it in. I’ve been using it for travel on a number of trips and it is a real lifesaver. When I travel with my family, we have 3 iPads, 2 iPhones, my Pebble watch, and an external iPhone battery. While I don’t have to charge all at once, it is quite handy to plug in 5 devices. It works as advertised and I haven’t had any problems with it. Some reviews have indicated that the device arrived dead or overheated. I haven’t seen those and it just works.

Pros

  • Compact
  • Handles multiple devices

Cons

  • None

Summary

The only question about this is how many should you get? I recommend getting at least one to throw in a suitcase so it is always ready for travel. Getting a second one to leave on a desk isn’t a bad idea either. While I don’t have an Anker on my desk (I have a different one that is of lesser quality), having a charger on my desk is quite handy.

These do go on sale for about $20-$25 periodically, so I wouldn’t pay more than that, but if you travel with more than 1 device, this is a great addition to any travel pack.

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My Kickstarter Scorecard

Over the last few years, I’ve seen a number of interesting projects on Kickstarter. I’ve backed 10 of them and have had mixed results in the results. So far 9 of the items have been delivered and the last one is due to be delivered in a few months. Let’s take a look at what I backed in chronological order:

  • Icons for iOS

    While the author probably didn’t need backing for this project, he did quite well and produced some nice icons. I received exactly what was promised and I’m pleased with the result. The author has continued to put out great icons. So I’ll give this a thumbs up.

  • The Oona

    This project was for a stand/way to hold an iPhone. Unfortunately, this was an utter failure. I reviewed what I got and wasn’t too pleased. This will be a thumbs down.

  • MySaver: protection for your iPad, iPhone, and iPod cables

    This was in interesting project designed to reinforce 30 pin iPhone/iPod cables. I reviewed this as well. While a bit expensive, this project delivered on what was promised. 3 years later and I still have cables with the MySaver on it that are doing well. We’ll give this a thumbs up as well.

  • MobileMount – Double Suction Cup Mount for Phones / Tablets

    As some might be able to tell, I’ve been in the search of a good way to hold my iPhone/iPad on my desk. This was another attempt to find a good way to hold the devices. Like other projects, I reviewed this as well. Unfortunately I’ve learned that suction cups are extremely unreliable and make poor mounts. This is a thumbs down.

  • Pebble: E-Paper Watch for iPhone and Android

    This project had a number of delays and it was well funded. Would this live up to all the hype? Well, 2 years after I received my Pebble, I still wear it everyday. When I first received it, I reviewed it. The product has only gotten better over time with all the updates. I’ll this this a big thumbs up.

  • Une Bobine – For People Who Love iPhone… and Android

    Another interesting project of a way to hold an iPhone. Unfortunately the longevity of this was limited given that Apple changed its connector. While they delivered what was promised, I wasn’t wowed by it. I’ll rate this as a neutral.

  • Almond+ : 802.11ac Touchscreen WiFi Router + Smart home Hub

    I was excited to see another option for home automation. This project was delayed a number of times, but was finally delivered. They are still working on the firmware and a new firmware was released the other day. I think they over promised and barely delivered. The hardware seems up to snuff, but the software has a lot to be desired. I think this ranks in as a neutral (leaning on thumbs down, but since they keep updating the firmware, I’ll leave it as a neutral).

  • Reel Delicious

    I backed this project in order to help a school project (most of the backing was tax deductible). I’m going to give this a neutral as it doesn’t fall in line with the tech projects I normally back.

  • XY – The secure iOS/Android Bluetooth tracking tag

    A co-worker pointed me to this project and I was curious about the software on other Bluetooth LE tags. Unfortunately, like other Bluetooth LE tags, it didn’t live up to the hype. I think that this is more of a failure of the technology than the implementation. I have to give this a thumbs down.

  • Hush | The World’s First Smart Earplugs

    These haven’t been delivered, yet. I’m confident that they will be delivered, but it remains to be seen if they will work as well as they promise.

So, lets recap. 3 thumbs up, 3 thumbs down, 3 neutral, 1 to be delivered. That’s not a great track record for projects. Will I keep backing projects on Kickstarter? Sure, I love the anticipation and being the first to get something new. I do have a limit on how much I’ll risk (unlike other projects that people back, so far I’ve received the promised items), but I’ll keep going with some projects.

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Revising my stance on vacation rentals

As many people who follow my blog know, I’m fighting a battle against short term vacation rentals since my neighbor decided to kick out a family and turn his property into a mini-hotel with people staying for a few days at a time. I’ve been scouring local regulations and reading everything I can about this topic.

Last week I spoke with a few attorneys about my legal options and listened to what they had to say. After these meetings as well as having another group of transients next door (with 1 call to the police), I think I have figured out my major complaint with the short term rentals. That complaint is that the property next door is being used as a mini-hotel and isn’t in the spirit of a neighborhood. Some people who support vacation rentals argue that they should be able to rent out their houses when they go on vacation to earn some extra money. While I don’t plan on doing this myself, I realize that I don’t have a huge problem with this if it is only done occasionally and not as a primary use of the property.

So while some may think I’ve softened my position on vacation rentals, I’m really just fine tuning it in a way such that what I want has a chance of being addressed by the city council. Taking a hard line stance completely banning vacation rentals has a very tough time passing given that the city collects tax revenue from visitors staying in these properties.

My new proposal is:

In order to promote neighborhood quality, character, and livability, the SDMC should be amended to allow short term rentals in RS zones with a minimum stay of 7 days only as an accessory use of a property. As an accessory use of the property, the owner must reside in the property for at least 10 months of the year.

This would address my needs of not having a mini-hotel next door and would let home owners earn extra cash. What it would do is prevent people from turning neighborhoods into rows and rows of mini-hotels. The proposal is similar to San Francisco’s new ordinance about rentals, but San Francisco’s ordinance doesn’t apply to single family residences.

The good news is that the city council’s subcommittee on smart growth and land use is taking up vacation rentals at its April 22nd meeting. You can submit feedback to Ryan Purdy by March 2nd. While I have no idea what will happen, the fact that the subcommittee is looking into this is a step in the right direction.

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Access to Politicians

Now that I’ve started my fight against vacation rentals, I’ve been trying to get a meeting with my city council representative, Lorie Zapf. At a recent Town Council meeting, she indicated that she was going to setup “office hours” where the public could arrange a time to speak with her. I haven’t heard any more about this and have asked via email if I could setup a meeting. While I was down at city hall today, I decided to see if I could schedule a meeting in person as I’m impatient and haven’t heard back to my email.

I went to the 10th floor of city hall, walked out of the elevator to a nondescript waiting area with a lady behind a window. The waiting area was uninviting and all the doors around said “authorized personnel only”. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this seemed like an experience worse than a doctor’s office. I asked the lady behind the window if I could get a meeting and she called back to someone and asked me to wait.

One of the councilwoman’s people came out, asked where I lived and then went back to see if the area rep could meet with me. She came back, said he was busy and took my name, email address and phone number to setup a meeting. I’ve previously sent email and haven’t heard back, so maybe my physical presence downtown today might change that.

While I understand that we live in a representative democracy, it would be nice if I could express my concerns in person to the person that represents me. I’ve never been particularly interested in politics as it didn’t really affect me. Hopefully I can get a meeting with someone from my councilwoman’s office and plead my case.

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Misinterpreting Property Rights

In my battle to limit vacation rentals, those that are either for them or not opposed to them keep claiming “property rights” such that the owner of a piece of property can do whatever he or she wants with the property. This is a very naïve view of the world and factually untrue in our modern society. We live in a society of laws and regulations which dictate what a person can and cannot do with property he or she owns.

For instance, while I own my house and property under it (OK, the bank owns part of it right now), I can’t build a farm on it, I can’t park cars in my front yard, I can’t build a gas station on it, I can’t build onto it without a permit, I can’t tear down my house and build condos (it is zoned as single family residential), etc.

So for anyone to claim that vacation rentals are a property right is mistaken. While the interpretation of the current regulations (I saw interpretation because the city attorney of San Diego has a different view on what constitutes a business than others do) doesn’t prohibit them, property rights doesn’t guarantee that they are allowed.

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Enforcing San Diego Trash Regulations

Some may be asking why I’m so interested in trash regulations. It’s quite simple, if the city won’t regulate vacation rentals, the more I can find and do to make vacation rentals less profitable, the more likely the vacation rental next door will go away.

Today I received confirmation that my analysis of trash regulations with respect to vacation rentals was correct. However, there are a number of problems in enforcing it:

  • Terminating trash collection for those with a Transient Occupancy Registration Certificate unfairly rewards those that don’t have the certificate and haven’t been operating within the law. That’s a pretty poor excuse. What I’d suggest is work with the city treasurer to enforce the TOT registration by issuing a subpoena to AirBnB, VRBO.com, etc. for records of all listings in the city. Then overlay that data with the registered ones and cite those without the certificate (and collect back tax). In addition, encourage neighbors to report vacation rentals. I’d be more than happy to work on data crunching to assist in finding people skirting the law.

  • If the city picks up the cans from the vacation rentals, nothing is stopping the owner from going to Home Depot, purchasing a trash can for automated collection and using it. The drivers don’t know who is supposed to get service and who isn’t. Again, this is an excuse. If the trash vehicles are equipped with GPS systems, work with the vendor to integrate a POI system that would alert the driver of properties to skip. If the vehicles aren’t equipped with GPS systems, it is about time they were as studies have shown that fleet vehicles like this can improve fuel economy with more efficient routes guided by GPS.

  • For areas like Mission Beach where the houses are rented out most of the year to students 9 months of the year and 3 months of the year used as vacation rentals, would the city stop and start service? Look at the regulations; they don’t say that a “transient occupancy facility” has to be one the entire year. So, if it is ever used as a vacation rental, stop trash collection completely.

  • If vacation rental owners have to get private trash service, there will be a big environmental impact of having additional trash vehicles on the street. Trash trucks not only have an environmental impact, they do numbers on the streets. I don’t have a solution for this problem.

  • How does this get enforced? That’s another easy one to answer. Encourage neighbors to report their neighbors; offer rewards under whistleblower statutes using money from fines. I’m sure neighbors would be more than happy to report vacation rentals next door.

Basically unless the Environmental Services Department is instructed to enforce the regulations by the mayor, they won’t do anything. I’ve sent a letter to the mayor and city attorney requesting that the trash service be discontinued for my neighbor; that doesn’t help anyone else, but it is a start. Will I get a response from the mayor? I have no idea.

Can I sue the city to get them to enforce the current regulations? I have no idea and I’d need an attorney to do pro-bono work for me as I can see the cost going up pretty quickly.

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Becoming a expert on San Diego Trash Regulations

Back in October, I wrote about vacation rentals and how they don’t fit into the spirit of my neighborhood. Since then, I’ve been researching as much as possible about it and trying to figure out what legal way I can help put an end to them. This is not a new battle as the communities of Pacific Beach and La Jolla have been trying to do something about curbing vacation rentals for years. I’ve setup a website to collect information about them.

While the spirit of the residential zoning laws don’t permit short term vacation rentals, the letter of the law permits it according to the city attorney (I don’t believe this interpretation, however).

I’ve been running through lots of different ideas in my head and last night it dawned on me that there may be a different tact. My neighbor has routinely put out his trash cans too early and removed them too late; the city requires that cans be put out after 6 pm prior to the day of pickup and removed no later than 6 pm the day of pickup. (SDMC §66.0105) This got me thinking, what other regulations are there with regards to refuse collection.

I found the regulations and got a huge smile on my face.

The City will not provide Non-Residential Refuse Collection Services, except for limited service to eligible small business enterprises if authorized by the City Council and in accordance with eligibility criteria established by the City Manager (Mayor).

Where “Non-Residential Refuse” is defined as:

Non-Residential Refuse means all refuse that is not Residential Refuse including, but not limited to, refuse generated at a commercial, industrial, institutional or transient occupancy facility, including but not limited to business facilities, hotels, motels, inns, bed & breakfast establishments, churches, non-profit organizations, and non-City government/public facilities.

and “Non-Transient Occupancy” is defined as:

Non-Transient Occupancy means occupancy through ownership, lease or rental for periods of one month or more.

So my layman’s interpretation on this is that one of 3 things has to happen:

  • The City stops collecting refuse for all properties that are short term vacation rentals. The City can use the Transient Occupancy Registration Certificate information to find some (not all) vacation rentals in the city.

  • The City Council has to declare that vacation rentals are eligible small businesses for refuse collection. This, however, could be problematic as saying that vacation rentals are businesses would make them not able to be in residential zones.

  • The City Council has to amend the refuse collection regulations to allow collection from vacation rentals.

If refuse isn’t picked up at the thousands (someone showed me a list of over 1100 vacation rentals in PB alone as listed on a vacation rental website), it could create a big problem for the owners/operators of these facilities. It might convince them to stop having a vacation rental (that’s my hope anyway). In addition, I wonder if the City could send bills to those with vacation rentals for past collections. If the other 2 options are chosen, the City Council has to act which they have failed to do with respect to vacation rentals.

So far I haven’t heard back from the code enforcement officer at the Environmental Services Department, but this could be quite interesting.