iMatt :: The Blog of Matt Clare

Over four months ago I ordered a WoPad from PandaWill.com, so far I’m glad to have the exposure to the Android platform, and for some tasks the larger screen works well. But, the bottom line is it does not replace what any of the Apple iOS devices do.

The Device

The best part about the WoPad is that with express shipping it costs less than $200.00 Canadian. The free Android operating system that Google provides allows seemingly random manufacturers to assemble a collection of hardware, add the Android OS and suddenly have a tablet for sale.

The WoPad offers a capacitive screen or pressure sensitive. I won’t consider anything without a capacitive screen to be a modern tablet, so I ordered the capitative screen so that I wouldn’t look like a cafeteria worker trying to punch-in a trays worth of food into it. That said, the WoPad’s capacitive screen is slow to respond, that or perhaps it’s ability to process touches is very slow, but more on that in a bit.

The WoPad also has an SD card reader, standard headphone jack, standard USB connector for external media, a mini-usb connector so that the WoPad itself can be an external drive. There’s also a micro-HDMI port (I have yet to test) and it’s non-standard power connector – however it will trickle charge off of the mini-USB cable.

Android

The first thing I did when I received my WoPad was ask a colleague to “root it” and install the latest Android ROM that the WoPad would could support.

The ROM he used was based on this thread over at SlateDroid.com www.slatedroid.com/topic/14507-wopad-froyo-custom-rom/ Using these steps www.slatedroid.com/topic/12854-how-to-flash-a-rooted-rom/

If it weren’t for my keenness to get the latest ROM it would have never needed to be connected to a computer. A challenge Apple’s “peripherals” have yet to overcome.
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As the 2011 season is almost upon us I’m once again encouraging you to sign-up for Mitch & Brooke’s F1 Fantasy Racing League at www.fantasyautoracers.com/f1_01/

This will be Mitch & Brooke’s F1 Fantasy Racing League 14^th year in a row and my third participating. I encourage you to make your team to compete against ZERO Racing, my team. It makes the season that much more fun.

The deadline for the first race is 1 hour before race time on Sunday, March 27th. Go to www.fantasyautoracers.com and sign up now to make sure you get your team in before that deadline. The site looks like it could use a visual update… working on that. But I’m sure you can look past that.

To get you in the mood, here’s a great tribute to Ayrton Senna from Top Gear, featuring Lewis Hamilton. Can’t wait for the new season or to see the Senna movie!

Here’s a few of my pictures from the 2010 Canadian Grand Prix.

Great race! Congratulations to Lewis Hamilton – I knew he had Canadian a pole and win in him!

I want to invite everyone with any interest in Formula 1 to sign-up for Mitch & Brooke’s Fantasy Racing League.

It makes the races that much more fun to watch and gives you five drivers to cheer for.

My siblings and I all had our own teams last year. The inside tip is my sister’s strategy that proved to be the best of three of us was choosing drivers by hotness.

This is why I want to encourage you to sign-up this year. It’s a far better experience when you know the “owner” of the other teams racing against you because the excitement of the race doesn’t end with the chequered flag, but when you find out how your fantasy team did — well in my case, that’s when it ended. You may do well!

Mitch & Brooke’s Fantasy Racing League just opened up registration for this year. If you can look past the web 0.9 appearance of the site I promise you’ll enjoy the experience: www.fantasyautoracers.com/f1_01/

On January 3 2010, with much excitement, I ordered three tickets to the Formula 1 race in Montreal this June. I gave www.circuitgillesvilleneuve.ca / www.admission.com my billing information and bought three seats (and a program). My friends and I were excited that we got great seats in grandstand 34 in middle of Montreal’s best corner “the hairpin”.

Twenty-five days later I get an E-Mail from Pamela Rodriguez of admission.com that reads

“.. you filled an order form for seats in grandstand 34 or 11 in regard of this year’s F1 race in Montreal.
At the time we treated your request, there was nothing left in those grandstands either because your order got in late or because the seats you requested never were available during presale.”

I filled out a web page, it only took me about a minute, I’m pretty sure they didn’t run out of seats in that minute. The E-Mail confirmation they sent me seemed pretty sure that there weren’t any problems.

I’m left curious when in those 25 days did they run out of seats? Did it happen sometime in the next 24 hours and it took them 24 days to contact me, or realize that they ran out? Did they run out today and it took them 24 days to process my order?

I called within 15 minutes of getting the unconfirmation E-Mail and made sure that my Master Card had yet to be billed for the rescinded tickets and then bought a “new” set of tickets at grandstand 34 – where we’ve been before – but I can’t help but feel misled and disappointed.

If you are thinking of buying tickets to for the F1 race in Montreal I’d recommend dealing with a broker or just watching the race from home. It’s the only way you can predict where you’ll be this June.
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