Maxtor. Grrrr. Urgle. Ugh.
August 4, 2009
Right at the moment, Seagate is driving me nuts.
Seagate makes the Maxtor One Touch Plus external backup drive, which supports my primary Windows machine. It holds backups for that computer as well as a fairly large Lightroom library of my photography, and I liked it…until now.
iPhone, bathtubs and blogging
March 24, 2009
However useful Gigi-the-iPhone may be, she has some limitations. For one thing, she’s not really a great companion in the bath (although I’ve been surprised at the quality of pictures she takes, even there–left).
Gigi and water don’t mix. In fact, the first thing that the Apple tech did when I brought Gigi in was to open her case and check to see if water had gotten in.
Apparently every iPhone comes with a wet indicator, some kind of reactive paper that changes color permanently if it gets wet. If it does, the tech said, “it voids your warranty and we can’t fix it.” [Read more]
All sound, no sale: iPod Shuffle
March 17, 2009
Just played around with the new iPod Shuffle, and I gotta say, I don’t get it.
Maybe it’s just my fuddyduddyness talking, but in an age when we can cram more and more information into personal mobile devices, why would I want one that takes me back to the dark ages?
Kindling the iPhone
March 8, 2009
For those of you who think that headline means I finally tossed Gigi-the-iPhone on the fire: Nope.
Actually, Gigi and I have gotten along pretty well in the last six weeks. She’s finally resigned herself to living with a peasant, and I’ve learned that she can be a pretty good phone…as long as I don’t try to use her 3G network. The only time she drops calls now is when I turn the daggone 3G back on. (If there’s a more perfect example than AT&T of why you shouldn’t sell a technology before you get it right, I don’t know what it would be.)
In fact, Gigi and I have been visiting that irresistible money magnet, the iPhone apps store, and trying things out. And I’ve discovered a natural rating system of sorts for the apps I try: Gigi presents apps in groups of 16 per page, and you can move app icons to any page you like. I’ve got five pages of the little buggers, pretty much arranged from most-used to least. Anything that makes Gigi’s first page is pretty darn indispensible. Anything on page five is about to be blitzed off the phone.
Amazon’s Kindle app (Amazon.com, free) has made it to page two.
Now, I’ve just not seen the sense in buying a Kindle. I mean, even a first-class gadget freak has to draw the line SOMEwhere. In Gigi, I’ve consolidated phone, pager, email, browser and all kinds of other gadgets I used to carry and my purse is about four pounds lighter. Why the heck would I want to add stuff back?
Besides, Gigi offers apps like Stanza, which lets you read just about any book or magazine in the public domain. It’s not great–no real illustrations, the interface is a tad clumsy–but it works.
But when Kindle came out for iPhone this week, I just had to try it. And I gotta admit, I kinda like it. It’s not–repeat NOT–the same as reading a book,. But if the book’s good enough, I could be reading it on a roll of toilet paper and I’d still love it.
You download the app, register with your Amazon.com username and password, and you’re automatically connected to your Amazon.com account. Buy a Kindle book, and it automagically shows up as an available download on your iPhone the next time you open the app.
(And, btw, here’s a fairly significant difference between the app and the Kindle: I’m told you can acquire books directly on the Kindle. The iPhone app only supports reading them; you still must buy them using a regular computer.)
I downloaded Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book ($9.99–the paper version is a couple bucks more) and gave it a shot. Text was easy to read, the illustrations were there, and the interface was very iPhone: A fingerswish moves you from page to page, you can easily select different text sizes and the “book” always opens to your last-read page. If you move about, you can resynch to the furthest page read. (BTW, TGB just won a Newberry Award, well-deserved. If you haven’t read it yet, you should.)
So…tell me again why I should buy a Kindle?
Loopt (free). Loopt has barely made it to page five and I probably won’t keep it. The Loopt app uses GPS and text messaging to do a geosynched kind of Twitter. Anyone connected with you can see where you are and, to some extent, what you’re doing. They can share geotagged photos, give you directions to places they’d like you to try, etc.
I’m all for presence detection, i.e., using applications such as instant messaging to learn when a person is (or isn’t) available to take a phone call, email, etc. But Loopt is kinda scary. The default privacy level on this app is essentially zero, and figuring out how to restrict others’ access can be challenging.
To use Loopt you must enter a bit more personal information into the app than I’m comfortable with. Besides, it works from your address book to match up with other potential Loopt members (and also to invite them to join–gee, isn’t that what malware does?).
Anybody with a significant online life (say, someone who, er, blogs a lot and has accounts on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and heaven knows where else) knows that privacy is an illusion and has made some measure of peace with that. That doesn’t mean, though, that I want folk checking to see if I’m out of the bathroom yet.
I suppose that kicks me up a notch on the fuddy-duddy scale, but too bad.
Facebook (free). I’ve also installed the iPhone version of Facebook which has, to my surprise, made it to page one. It’s a useful little precis of what’s going on with your Facebook friends and, aside from the iPhone’s lousy keyboard, is pretty easy to use.
(BTW, if you’re on Facebook, come find me; I’m gathering a nice network of glassists and techists and they’re fun)
BBC World News (free) kicked the New York Times newsreader out of its page one spot last week, mostly due to its broader news focus and slightly faster performance. It’s a quick, fast update that also gives you access to “World, Have Your Say,” which has to be one of the most fascinating radio programs on air.
MagicPad ($3.99), one of the the first rich text editors for the iPhone, also moved to page one. It lets you cut and paste text from one application to another, something that’s been sadly lacking in the iPhone, and also allows you some rudimentary formatting such as changing fonts and text color. Using it can be an exercise in frustration until you understand how the gestures work with the editor, but once you get the hang of it, it’s quite useful.
Been playing around with more apps, including FacePhone ($2.99), which matches up your address book and your FaceBook friends, iStethoscope (free), a heart monitor and sound amplifier for iPhone that so far hasn’t so much as found my pulse, and Pinger, which lets you send text messages for free and integrates your social and instant messaging accounts into a single place.
So far, only Pinger looks like it’ll make it off page five, but I’ll keep you posted…
Making the iPhone phone
January 18, 2009
After my rant about iPhone woes the other day, my buddy Ed sent me a note: “…after you get rid of the I-phone. I love my Macs but would never put up with the mess you keep telling us about. Buying a back up phone, phooey!”
Hmmm. Right after that, when I’d reconnected to her for the third time, a friend said, “You know what? Don’t call me on that thing anymore. Just wait till you get to a landline.”
OK. Something had to be done. AT&T insisted that it wasn’t THEIR fault, it was Apple’s, so I called Apple.
Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Repeat.
January 14, 2009
Computer users are a remarkably forgiving lot. Mobile phone users are not, so why is the iPhone 3G, with its lousy phone service, such a success?
Because we’re treating it like a computer, not a phone.
Mobile marketing on steroids
December 24, 2008
Anybody out there tried SnapTell for the iPhone? It’s, variously, a powerful, scary or just plain freakin’ cool new tool, available free on iTunes.
SnapTell helps you find the best price for a book, CD or DVD you’re interested in buying. You use the iPhone camera to snap the cover, then SnapTell identifies the title from its database. It will deliver reviews and a rundown on prices, new and used, from the nearest local stores, Google, Barnes & Noble, eBay and Yahoo. It lets you comparison shop while you’re actually standing in the store, and–assuming it can get to the data, which is a BIG assumption–could be a boon to students trying to save money on textbooks, for example.
I tried out the SnapTell app on a few books and DVDs. As long as I was snaptelling stuff with a valid ISBN/ASIN number it seemed to work reasonably well.
It can’t do the impossible. A snaptell of corporate distributions, such as Bullseye Glass’ Connections video, generally returns a “No match found” error message or it picks the closest match in its database, which can be fun. 
One of Philippe Faraut’s excellent sculpting tutorials, The Art of Sculpting: Children (left), came back listed as Budapest at Night, a CD of Hungarian music by Sandor Lakatos and his Gypsy Band (right).
I can see the probable landmarks that SnapTell established between the two (the square photo, arch of the sculpture’s head, the bangs and the left temple, the neckline, etc). Corning’s latest DVD, Glass Masters at Work: Lino Tagliapietra, a documentary by Robin Lehman, shows up in SnapTell as a $400 textbook, Linear Motion Electromagnetic Devices for similar reasons. Still, those are mile-wide misses that demonstrate the problems inherent in relying on image matching alone.
If I need to compare prices on, say, the English version of Princess Mononoke, it could really come in handy. And it will also save time; I can snaptell an entry to a friend looking for a particular book much faster than I can type in how/why buy info on Gigi-the-iPhone’s lousy screenboard.
Of course, behind the noble purpose–saving money–lies clever marketeering. SnapTell comes from SnapTell, a SilliValley mobile marketing firm that’s using image matching and mobile phone cameras to drive marketing campaigns. Mobile cameraphone users snap photos of ads and products to learn more about them, and participating companies deliver the info along with messaging and branding reinforcement.
For companies, it’s a potentially very effective way to reach the mobile demographics, especially since anyone going to the trouble to take a picture of an ad is already at least partially sold. For users, it’s a fast way to get more information, coupons, freebies, etc., without touching a desktop PC. And since it’s inherently opt-in, it’s far more welcome (presumably) than mobile spam.
The downside for users, however, is the usual: Signing up is forever, and once a company has you in its database as interested, it’s up to THEM to stop. And there’s another con: Since SnapTell isn’t in the game for philanthropy, presumably whoever shows up on the SnapTell bookstore list is either a free resource or has paid to be there. No pay, no show.
That’s probably why the two most obvious book resources I use, Amazon.com and the local Powell’s, were nowhere to be found. Since I’ve no intention of downloading an app for every establishment I buy might something from, and since my consumer info is a valuable marketing currency, SnapTell is either gonna have to sell everybody or figure out how to provide comprehensive info and still make money. Google did it–let’s see what SnapTell comes up with.
Blogcheck: Can you hear me now?
December 11, 2008
Just upgraded to WordPress 2.7–LOTS to like about the new version of this blogging tool–but the upgrade was kinda funky. So do me a favor, if you would–let me know if you see anything odd about the blog today…
[Read more]
Best iPhone apps, continued
November 23, 2008
Gigi-the-iPhone is a goofy little beast. As I’ve said ad nauseum, I’m willing to put up with her crummy phone service because she’s taken over so many other tasks. And what gets her there are the apps.
If you’re using a barebones iPhone, i.e., only the apps that came in the box, you’re operating at about half-strength on the utility scale.
If you’re not sure how to add apps to your iPhone (you can do it directly from the iPhone by tapping on the Apps icon, or through iTunes on your computer), Apple has a pretty good tutorial on their apps site.
10 iPhone apps that really ARE useful
November 2, 2008
Fortune Magazine just named the “Top 10 must-have iPhone apps,” and pretty much proved why business magazines shouldn’t try to talk geek. If you want a 2-inch rotating disco ball or a screen depicting simulated beer, cowbells, staplers (STAPLERS?) and cigarette lighters, this is the list for you.
If you want anything useful, look elsewhere.
The iPhone, as I’ve said, is a lousy phone. Once the coolfactor dies, the reason you’ll still own it is because it’s actually a quite useful pocket computer and entertainment center. You can download impressive apps that add to the already-impressive bunch on the phone, most for less than $10 (or free). Here are my favorite ten so far, in no particular order (and here’s another 10, with games): [Read more]