Guiles When You are away (Originally a Post on my Guild’s Forums)

UPDATE: Since I have writen this post Blizzard has come out with a Android App for guild chat. It will be free till 5/10/11

Hey I hope you everyone is having a good brake from wow. I couldn’t really stay away I just been trying to level hord toon, I got lazy and just paid for a faction change and changed my pally into a torrent pally. In the last few days I found something cool that I wanted to share with all of you. If you have an iPhone Blizzard updated the mobile armory to include guild chat as part of it now. I’ve known this was coming for a while and when I saw on wowhead that it had finally came out I couldn’t download the update fast enough.

Like I said before this update makes guild chat available on your iOS device (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad). I’ve been using it now for a few days to talk to peegs hord guild cause I’ve been to lazy to really log on and I’ve loved it plus just the shock from people when I say im using guild chat from my iPod that’s always fun too. I started talking to someone and they said there was a app for vent too so I looked high and low for this app but I couldn’t find nothing. I was told it was called ventaphone. I googled it and it turns out that it got taken off the app store.

For the hell of it I looked at the android market and I found an app called Ventriloid and it works perfect. I can now use vent on my cell phone witch made me happy. I should probably mention that all these apps are free. So if you have an iPhone mobile armory for guild chat, get wile guild chat is free. Also Ventedroid for android users. I have the links at the bottom of the post.

Links:

Mobile armory

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/world-warcraft-mobile-armory/id321057000?mt=8

Ventriloid

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.jtxdriggers.android.ventriloid&feature=search_result

I Have The Site Back

As of today 3/14/11 I have back Mikes World of Tech but I’m going to do something's different this time. When I originally got this site I had the idea that maybe I could use this site as a way to make a few bucks and write about something I love technology. I had a year off and nothing else to do and well I did make a few bucks just not enough for Google to cut me a check. I stopped working on this site because I started college and I just didn’t have time to write anymore. Well I still have classes I'm not done yet but I keep listening to TWIT and when they do their ad of Squarespace Leo always talks about controlling your personal brand online and that you should have your own space on the web. Yes its nice to have a Facebook page or a twitter account, but those aren’t really yours if Facebook goes out of business tomorrow now you no longer exists on the internet.you have no identity now. Well at least if you have your own website you have control over yourself on the web and if Squarespace goes out of busniss I can move my site to another server and keep going I'm not reliant on squarespace I have control. So what I’m getting at is this site is going to be a little bit more personal but there will be tech post still as well. So I hope everyone will like the changes that I will be making to the site. As always if you need anything you can e-mail me using the forum on the left column of the site.

What is Windows 7 Service Pack 1?

Windows 7 SP 1 beta was released Monday for people to download and try out. Most people are asking what it changes. The answer to that is nothing… nothing at all. Service pack 1 for Windows 7 is just a roll up of all the updates since Windows 7 has come out. This just makes it easier for when you are reinstalling windows, you don’t have to download 33+ updates you just have to download one big update. That’s about it.

Now I have a question. Should Microsoft be adding something with SP1? I think they should. They need to add something to SP1 to give people a resin to get it. Even if it was new wallpaper, they need something so that when people update to SP1 they know that they did it. In Windows XP SP2 there were a lot of resins to update to XP SP2 like a stronger firewall and the security center. These things made Windows XP a little safer and gave people a resin to update to XP SP2. They were also physical changes that the user could see.

Service packs have always been just update roll ups in the past, with the exception of XP SP2. But shouldn’t that change shouldn’t they give people the incentive to get service packs so that they can stay safe and up to date?

If you want to see the screen shots of the install process you can see them here.

Technorati Tags: Windows 7,Service Pack 1,Windows XP SP2,Microsoft,Firewall

Momentum Shift

The iPhone4 was release a week or so ago and has brought Apple a lot of money and a lot of problems with the phones reception. Apple has said that they are coming out with a fix iOS 4.0.1 which is not really a fix for the reception it is more of a fix for the bars. The bars are like the cake it’s a lie. Here is what Apple had to say about the problems:

“Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display 4 bars when we should be displaying as few as 2 bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying 4 or 5 bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.

To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.”

You can read the whole letter at Apples site here. What theses 2 paragraphs are saying is that the iPhone bars have been lying to us this whole time, and that there fix is going to make it tell the truth as to how many bars it really has. I feel as if Apple took a gamble on the iPhone4. They had to have known the problems with the phone before it came out, but they decided to not delay it. This gamble just will not pay off for Apple in the long run.

The Droid X will be coming out next Thursday and as long as the Droid X doesn’t have the reception problems of the iPhone 4 it should be another good Android phone that can be added to the long list of Android phones. Android has been gaining momentum now for a while and these issues with the iPhone4 will help Android gain even more momentum.

It will be like Vista there was a few little problems that only affected businesses for most people Vista would have been fine. But Apple ran the Mac VS PC ads and got people to Switch to Mac or in some cases got them to just not upgrade to Vista.

Google might be able to do the same to the iPhone. There many people reading and seeing these issues with the iPhone this may scare them off. They might instead just sick with their phone or they might get some other type of smart phone. Either way if Apple wants to stop with shift they better pull a rabbit out of there hat soon.

Technorati Tags: iPhone 4,Momentum Shift,Android,Droid X,Mac VS PC,Vista

RIP KIN

Yesterday Microsoft announced that it would be discontinuing the KIN. The KIN was a phone Microsoft made amid towards the tween crowd. It was small cute, and seemed to work well with social media that kids in that age group would want. The KIN was only out for a month or so before this announcement the other day.

Why did the KIN fail? I think the big problem for the KIN was most parents are not going to spend $80+ a month for a single plane for their kids. Verizon just does not have cheap plans unlike T-Mobile that has planes for smart phones that you can get for $60 with no contract. The problem with that plan is you would have to pay full price for the phone and I’m sure parents are not going to pay $400 for a phone for their kids either.

So from that view KIN was doomed from the start. Another problem people had too was, what OS the KIN was running? We all know that Microsoft is coming out with Windows Phone 7. KIN form what I came to understand from watching Windows Weekly was running a stripped down version of Windows Phone 7. So KIN was not a smart phone it was a glorified feacher phone. Kind of like the T-Mobile Side Kick. That is probably because some people form that team helped make KIN.

The final thing I feel kind of killed the KIN was the ad’s for the KIN. They just never made sense to me and one kind of is a little creepy I think. There is one ad for the KIN that gets played a lot. The kid is visiting everyone in his social network and oh look he ran into his ex (turn and just walk away kid) the girl friend doesn’t seem to be too happy to see him and so he takes a photo of her and they show off the Studio and talk about that for a bit. To me this ad seems creepy. It seems Microsoft wants no one to see that ad I looked all over YouTube to find it.

I believe that the monthly charge for this phone is what killed it. Microsoft did say that the KIN team was going to now be a part of the Windows Phone 7 team. You have to think that they might take some of KIN’s strengths and put that to use in Windows Phone 7.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,KIN,verizon,creepy ads,Windows Phone 7

First Look at Windows Live Essentials 4 Part 2

Live Movie Make:

Windows Movie maker has been around in Windows since Windows XP and it never really changed much at all. Well with the last releases of Windows Live Essentials 3 Movie maker was finally added to the suit. They gave it a much needed facelift and made it easier to use. The problem was it came out latter then the rest of the suit. It was in beta for a long time, so it was not really integrated like the rest of the applications. Well in Live Essentials 4 they make Live Movie maker more integrated with Photo Gallery now. Movie maker is really a good slide show maker and good for making quick edits to YouTube videos before you upload them. I made a slide show of the photos I took a month ago as sample slide shows enjoy.

The sample slide show I made with movie maker.

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Live Sync:

I think the last thing that has a big change to it is Windows Live sync. I’ve been using Sync to sync my photo between my laptop and my desktop computer for wile now. I’ve always found that it was a little difficult to do. You had to do everything on the Windows Live Sync site, and the site was vary clunky I thought. Well now it’s all in the app now you just click the icon and you get a nice simple interface just tell it what folder you want to sync and what computer you want to sync with and it just dose it. A few other things that have been added are you can now sync your IE 8 bookmarks between other computers and also you can sync Office documents. They even now add SkyDrive as a place you can sync your documents and photos to, the catch is they only give you 2 GB out of your 25 GB for your SkyDrive sync. This might be something they open up more someday. Despite this it is still worth using if you have files you need on all your computers.

These tools I wish they could just put this in with Windows like Apple dose with iLife, but sadly Microsoft cannot. For most people who buy new computers Windows Live Essentials 4 will come with their new computers since Microsoft has deals with HP, Dell and other. If you want it now go to http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials-beta and read the system requirements because there is no Windows XP support for the beta.

Technorati Tags: Windows Live,Wave 4,Essentials,Live Sync,Live Movie Maker,Microsoft,iLife

First Look at Windows Live Essentials 4

Last week Microsoft realest the public beta for Windows Live Essentials 4. For you Mac people that’s the Microsoft version of iLife. So the new version is in Public beta this means it’s not finished yet there could be some changes between now and when it comes out officially. Also this means it might crash a lot for you so I’ll give you the disclaimer your mileage may vary.

Windows Live Photo Gallery:

Windows Live Photo Gallery was the first thing I looked at after I installed the suit. Photo Gallery is the App I use the most out everything else in Live Essentials. Why is that? Well for a long time I’ve been looking for something like iPhoto but for Windows. I tried things like Picasa and it just didn’t feel right to me. Then wile listing to Windows Weekly on the TWIT network they were talking about this Windows live thing and went to the site they gave to get it and installed it. The first version was not 100% what I wanted but I knew it would get there one day. Today I feel Windows Live Photo Gallery is right where I want it.

The Ribbon UI has been added to all the applications this time around and it is done very well I think.

As you can see from the screen shot they have added things such as batch tagging, and a few more options built in to upload your photos online such as Facebook and SkyDrive. One of the improvements I saw right off the back was a better way to brows photos by people that you have tagged. On the home tab there is a thing called quick find if you have photos that you have tagged people in, their face will appear there. If you click a person’s face it will find every photo you have of that person instantly. Photo recognition is not new in Photo Gallery but the ability to use it to find peoples photos quicker is new. There is so much more like being able to crate photo slide shows easier, and tons of other things that I will get more in depth on when it comes out of public beta.

Windows Live Writer:

Windows Live Writer was the second thing I checked out since it’s the second most used app in the suit that I use. There isn’t really to many changes to this app. This time around it seemed like it was more about simplicity. I found that finding tools that I use in there for the site was a lot easier to find and use. I also noticed some stability updates such as when I add a photo from my computer it doesn’t lock up like it used to and same for adding YouTube videos. Those are all the changes I really could find with Live Writer.

See Part 2 tomorrow.

If You want these apps now just go to http://explore.live.com/windows-live-essentials-beta to get the public beta. Just to note you should look at the system requirements before you install. Also from what I can see there is no XP SP3 support for Essentials 4 so your out of luck XP users.

Technorati Tags: Windows Live Essentials 4,Wave 4,Microsoft,Windows,Vista,Windows 7,Live Photo Gallery,Windows live Writer,SkyDrive,Facebook

Welcome to the New Mikes World of Tech

Welcome to the new layout for the site. I’ve wanted to do a new layout for wile now; the old one seemed a bit too much for the eye. I scaled back and just did simple colors. Thanks the Sqarespace’s editing tools it only took me about an hour or so to do all this. Now I want to point out some changes from the old site versus the new one.

The first one I would like to point out is the Search. You now look for older post that I have done by going to the search page on the top navigation bar. I’ve done many tips and how to post threw out the years so use search to find them.

Item number two that I want to talk about is really two things. I moved the side bar to the left I just felt it looked better then on the right. The other thing I wanted to talk about is I have a new RSS feed for the site you can subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/MikesWorldOfTech this can also be found at the bottom of the side bar.

The last thing I want to talk about is I’m starting a monthly newsletter. You can subscribe by going to the Newsletter link at the top of the page. I will send a post about what I think was the most important tech story of the month and we can talk about it.

I hope you enjoy the improvements and subscribe to the RSS feed so you are always up to date about what is going on in the tech world also you can follow me on twitter.com/mikeswortldoftec. Also check out my new blog I started googleplexcity.blogspot.com for all things Google.

Getting To know Mozilla

A few days ago I sent a few questions to Mozilla to have answers. I felt there are a lot of people out there now that use Firefox everyday and probably don’t know much about the company it’s self. Today I got a reply back from them here are the answers to my questions. Enjoy!

1. How and where did Mozilla start?

The Mozilla project was created in 1998 with the release of the Netscape browser suite source code that was intended to harness the creative power of thousands of programmers on the Internet and fuel unprecedented levels of innovation in the browser market. More information on the history of Mozilla can be found here.

2. How did Mozilla come up with the name Firefox?

See the FAQ "Why Change the Name" for details on why the name Firefox was chosen

3. Dose Mozilla have an opinion about Flash vs HTML5? If so, what is it?

Mozilla believes that the future of online applications lies with web standards, including HTML5. Fundamental web technologies should not be encumbered with patents or closed and proprietary.

4. Do you have any predictions about the future of the direction the web is going? Do you think it’s going to be the Mobile Web, Cloud Services, or something else?

Mozilla is a public-benefit organization dedicated to making the Internet better for everyone. We would like to see the future of the web incorporate a better experience for users everywhere, more control by users over their experience, and improved customization and extensibility of individual browsing experiences.

5. Now that Opera has gotten on to the iphone, will we ever see a mobile version of Firefox for the iphone?

We have been working on an application for the iPhone based on the Firefox Sync (formerly Weave Sync) technology. The app is called Firefox Home, and it gives iPhone users instant access to their Firefox browsing history, bookmarks and the set of tabs from their most recent browser session. For more information see the blog post: Firefox Home Coming Soon to the iPhone.

I have to thank the people at Mozilla again for getting back to me so soon. I hope to do more quick little Q&A type interview again. I would also like to add you can follow Firefox on Twitter @firefox.

Technorati Tags: Firefox,Mozilla,iPhone,interveiw,get to know

Is the Mac Dead?

Last week Apple silently updated the Mac Mini. Giving it a unibody case and a HDMI port on it so it can be used with a TV, which kind of kills Steve Jobs hobby, the Apple TV. At WWDC there was nothing in the keynote about the Mac. This worries some people and it probably should. Steve could have said something about the Mac, but there was nothing. Does this mean that the Mac is dead?

I think it is. Now I don’t think that they are just going to stop making Macs, but I do think that they aren’t going to be updating the Macs unless they have to. Some updates might be putting faster CUPs and more RAM in their computers, but I don’t for see anything new coming to the Macs anytime soon. The Mac line is just going to sit and collect dust, I feel. They can’t really get rid of the Mac line up completely, because there would be riots in the streets. They may not care much about the Mac community, but I don’t foresee them just purposely pissing them off either.  I would say Mac has a good long life ahead of it, but it just might be a sad lonely one.

For many years, Steve Jobs has said that the PC is dead and that mobile computing was the future. Well, he was a little ahead of his time when he said that, but it does look like he was right. More and more we are seeing OEMs like HP, and Dell making phones and tablets. Why is that? It’s because they want something that is close enough, if not better, than an iPad type device. The PC will probably never go away but I do see a day where a PC or any type of desktop device is more of a business thing and things like the iPad and iPhone are what people use at home to surf the web and do home tasks. Let’s face it, for most people an iPad would be just enough for them if there was just a good way to print from it. You could replace a laptop or desktop computer with it. Unless you have special needs. Things like the Mac and OS X are and have always been too much for the normal person.  An iPad is just right.

So let’s recap. The Mac line up I feel, is dead when Apple does updates now to the Mac they're silent updates or just nonevents. While all the focus is on mobile devices like the iPhone and the iPad.  I would not replace my Desktop computer or laptop just yet with an iPad. It’s just not there yet because I still have needs that a desktop fulfills.

Technorati Tags: iMac,Apple,OS X,Mac mini,Apple TV,iPad,iPhone,iOS

Miso

There are so many location base games out there like 4 square which kind of started the whole location game movement. I find there are two problems with these games, or at least for me there are two problems with these games and that is you have to go places. I don’t go many places, maybe a friend’s house now and then but I just don’t like to go out. The other problem is they require a phone with GPS and I don’t have one. So what is someone like me to do… well I do like to watch TV and that is ware Miso comes in.

Miso is kind of like 4 Square in a way. Miso lets you tell everyone what you are watching on TV or what Net casts you are watching. There is an iPhone/ iPod Touch app to make it easy to check in to the TV shows you are watching.

Miso has many TV shows already in its data base so it is not hard to find what you are watching. But if it is not there you can add the show that you are watching. Like I said before there are badges that you can earn from watching TV shows.

There are also social things going on with Miso you can have friends or if you want to see if any of your Facebook friends or Twitter followers have it you can have Miso look for you. You can even plug Miso in to your Facebook and Twitter account so when you check in to a TV show it sends your check in to those accounts and your friends can see what you are watching. You also get more points for plugging Miso into those accounts so to get badges faster.

Now ok I know Miso is really a stupid thing and it really has little value but every now and then it is kind of cool to see what your friends are watching. It’s fun to do and if you want you can find me on Miso I’m samlikecoke on there. I do recommend this app. I should also note there is a web site gomiso.com . Check it out and join today.

Technorati Tags: Miso,Game,Reveiw,iPhone,iPod Touch,4 Square

iPhone 4

Yesterday was the WWDC key note and alot was talked about one of things was saw about a month ago thanks to some tech blog. There were new apps that were talked about such as Netflicks for iPhone, Framville for iPhone, Guitar Hero for iPhone, and iMovie for iPhone. These were all nice anouncements but once Steve said iPhone 4 that was it. So what is new in iPhone 4 well let me tell you.
iPhone 4 has a new look to it. I could try and describe it but they say a pitcher is worth a thousand words so I'll let the the photos talk for me.

You might be able to see form this pic that the iPhone 4 is thinner than other smart phones. Apple clams that the iPhone 4 is the thinnest Smart Phone in the world. The display on the iPhone has gotten an upgrade it is the same size, but it displays 326 pixels per inch. There calming that the screen is better than most OLED screens on phones. As you can probably see form the photo there is a front facing camera on the phone for iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 chats which they are calling FaceTime. Steve Jobs did say that FaceTime will be opened up as an open standard today. I would think that would mean that 3^rd party apps like Skype could use the front camera so you can do video Skype calls but who knows with Apple they might have some kind of restriction. I should also note that FaceTime calls can only be made on WIFI. The way Steve put it; it might be just a matter of time before you can do it over the cell phone network.

The iPhone for will be available on June 24^th it will be in two colors black and white. AT&T will let you out of your contract for your current phone if your contract expires anytime in 2010 if you renew with a 2 year contract. iPhone OS 4 has a new name it is now iOS 4 and that too will available June 24^th and it will be Free for all iPhone 3G and up users and it will be free for iPod Touch 2^nd gen and up users.

My final thoughts on the iPhone 4 based off the keynote is if you didn’t get a 3G because there was nothing new well you made a good call I do think the iPhone 4 will be a grate upgrade for you. If you just had to have the 3GS well if you can get the iPhone 4 it seems to be a good upgrade all around.

Technorati Tags: iPhone,Apple,iOS 4,iPod Touch

Photo Editing On the Cheap

It’s spring time which means, the snow is gone the birds are out and the flowers are starting to bloom. This to me only means one thing, it’s time to take the camera out and start taking photos of everything. I don’t have a DSLR, I have a Samsung Digimax A503 it’s a 5 mega pixel camera. It’s a great little camera and takes very good photos. It just can’t get the detail that a DSLR could get when I take photos. I try to make up for this by editing the photos colors. I use 3 photo editing programs… well some times 4 photo editing programs and I would like to share them with you all.

The first program I use is Windows Live Photo Gallery. I use this to keep all my photos organized; import new photos form my camera and do quick edits to photos and to upload the photos to Flickr and Facebook. Gallery is a simple and straight forward. It’s nice for when you want to throw a quick slide show of your photos as well. Windows live gallery is part of the Windows live Essential suit that Microsoft offers at get.live.com and it is only for Windows XP, Vista, and 7 users only (sorry mac people).

Now, almost every time I take photos I normally have a few where I say to myself, “I bet I could do something with that.” That is when I fire up GIMP. GIMP is an advance photo editor it’s really for the people that want to get Photoshop but just don’t want to use it or can’t justify spending the cash for Photoshop. The only thing that worries me is I have not seen any kind of updates for GIMP in the last year or so. I’m worried that it is going to stand still and at some point I'm going to have go out and actually purchase Photoshop. Until that day comes, I have GIMP and it is more then I will ever need. As a word of warning if you already use Photoshop don’t use GIMP because most people that are used to Photoshop hate the UI of GIMP.

Maybe GIMP is too much for you. You want to do some edits but what you want to do isn’t in Windows Live Gallery, well you could always try Photoshop Express. This is an online application to edit your photos. You just have to go to photosho.com and make an account. It’s easy to use, you just have to upload the photo or photos you want to edit and hit edit to edit the photo. Give it a try the next time you are editing photos. You can share and organize your photos on there as well. With a free account you can keep up to 2 GB of photos but you can buy more storage as needed. There is a mobile app for this as well for the iPhone called Photoshop mobile. This has some nice filters and quick edits fetchers for when you take photos on your iPhone.

There is one thing I forgot to talk about in this, and that is the price off all these programs. You might be thinking $19.99, or maybe $9.99, I’m here to say everything I talked about in this is all free and with the exception of Windows Live Gallery these applications all work on Windows, Mac and also Linux. If you were thinking of getting Photoshop so you could fix some of the photos you took Mothers Day, save your money and try some of these free programs instead.

Google IO Day 1 Keynote

    The first day Google IO keynote was today which starts off the two day Google developer conference. There was not a hole lot to talk about that would interest most people, like I said its a developer conference. If you would like to read about everything that was talked about in the key note you can go to the Official Google Blog which has all the details there.

    Now there was two things that pop out in my mind when I think back to it that really just made me say "WOW", those were the Chrome Web Store and the Sports Illustrated HTML 5 app. Before HTML 5 and the web 2.0 we used mostly client apps that ran on our computers like Microsoft Office. To get office you would have to go to a store and buy it and maybe wile you were at the store you might see another software that you might want as well. Now you would go home and install it on your computer. Right now there is no system like that for web apps. The mobile market found how to fix that with mobile stores like the iTunes app store and neat less to say Google is taking a play out of Apples book and doing the same with HTML 5 apps. They are doing this by making the Chrome App Store. How they showed it off in the demos it looks like that page that you get in Chrome now that shows you the most resent pages you've ben to and the tabs you recently closed. Well take that out put icons and you got this Chrome desktop. There's one icon that says Chrome App Store. When you click on it and it takes you to the app store it looks a lot like the Apple app store. You can buy and get apps with a quick click of the mouse and they are added to your home screen on Chrome in a flash. The coolest thing they showed was the games. They showed Plants VS Zombies and they also showed Lego Star wars, and it seemed to work grate. But this was just a demo so your mileage may vary.

    The other thing that was showen off was a HTML 5 app for Sports Illustrated. Which I really didn't think I would even care about since I really don't like any real sports. But I saw how magazines are going to change. There was a mix of photos text and video in this app. It all seemed practical too there was videos ware it was useful and made sense and not just any ware like you might think they would put it. They had vary good navigation tools as well ways to save video in the app so that you could read it later. What I really thought was cool was the fact you can recorgaize articles so you can put what you want to read at the front and the stuff maybe you don't care about to the back. I my self may not care about reading SI but I do see how other company's can do similar things to have a good magazine experience online.

    There was a lot more that was talked about today and from what they said there will be even more tomorrow. They even used the word surprise. Could this be a Chrome OS device announcement or maybe even a Android tablet I guess we will just have to wait and see tomorrow. In the the mean time you can go to the Google IO YouTube channel and watch the keynote if you want to do so by to youtube.com/googledevelopers.

Technorati Tags: Google IO,SI,HTML 5,Chrome Web Store,Lego Star Wars,Chrome,Google

My Top iPod Touch Apps

I recently got a new iPod Touch as I stated in my last post. When I plugged it in the new iPod it asked me if I wanted to restore from an old back. I said no, so that I could maybe save some room on it and get rid of what I don't use. Well I also started thinking of what apps I use every day and well I thought I should share some of those apps with all of you.
TweetDeck:
The first app I cant live without is Tweet Deck for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It brings everything you love about the desktop app to the mobile space. Its great for if you have more then one account you need to keep track of. I love how I can make columns that are just my twitter lists, or columns that are saved searches in twitter. The only thing I can think of that bugs me about tweet deck for the iPod Touch is that when I turn it side ways when I go to make tweet. It doesn't sense the screen is sideways and doesn't go in to landscape mode, I have to hit a button for it to go into landscape mode. It's really a minor problem but it dose bug me and I wish they would fix that. Over all Tweet Deck I feel is one of the best Twitter apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Facebook:
    I'm not done yet, there are more apps I use everyday. The Facebook app is another app that I feel I can't live without. Being able to just take out my iPod and check my Facebook messages or IMing my friend/editor for this site Erick about things. The mobile Facebook app gives you access to your news feeds and all your friends so you can talk with them just like you would on your desktop. In my opinion, it works better then the regular site because you can't get side tracked with things like Farmville. Since there is no flash on the iPhone and iPod Touch. There is a negative to this app and that is you can't access Facebook messages offline. Now I know that dosen't really sound like a problem you might even think its quite stupid. I find more and more of my important info is being sent to my Facebook messages than my normal e-mail. The built in Mail app for the iPod Touch catches my e-mail I get through my many e-mail addresses I have setup to the device. Why can't I do that with my Facebook messages? It's probably just me that wants this. If that's not a problem for you and even if it is, you should still get the Facebook app for the iPod Touch if you live on Facebook like I do.

New York Times:
    If you want to get caught up on your daily news, the New York times app is great... for now. I'll exsplan the "for now," a little latter. For me this is one of the first apps I look at when I wake up in the morning. I will admit I don't always read it all but I scan it till I find a headline that catches my eye. I also love how it is customizable, because you can put shortcuts to the sections you want to look at. Now remember the New York Times is old media so their not in the business of giving away free news. With that said the app doesn't give you the full articles but gives you almost everything. To make it simple you can read what it is about. The other problem is not a problem, yet. I'm sure it will be soon and that is, that the NY Times will be adding a subscription fee for the web site and I'm sure this app as well by next year. Until then enjoy the free news.

Mashable:
    If you are into Twitter and Facebook then you probably are into the whole social media thing. I'm sure its no news to you that Mashable is the place to get social media news. Mashable had a crappy iPhone app that I felt was, well, half baked. Now, they have come out with a new Mashable app that is fully baked. Everything that is on the Mashable web site can be right on your iPhone or iPod Touch for you to read in full. When you open it, it will check for latest stores. It will also put the stories to your device so you can read them latter ( I should note it dose not save images or videos). There is notifications so that if you want to know about stories as they are posted, you can have that turned on. Which leads in to my problem with the app. The notifications are nice but I wish I just could filter them. For example, I wish I could say only notify me of stories about Facebook and Twitter. Then, when a story about Twitter or Facebook is posted it would only alert me about that and not every little thing like this:

    For now I have turned off notifications. If you are really into social media or just looking for something to read on the bus, I would say get this app and you can't go wrong.

LockBox:
Do you have information that you wish you had an easy way to keep secure and be with you when you need it? Well I did and this next app helped me out a lot. I had some information that I wanted to keep on my iPod awhile ago, but I needed to keep safe somehow. So I started looking up apps that could let me put a password or something on a note with important info on it. That's when I saw LockBox. This app lets you put info like passwords and bank info into this app and you can put a 4 digit code on it. Now I know 4 digit codes are not really all that secure but in this case I felt some security was better then none. There are problems with this app, the fact that you can only do 4 digit codes is one. The other is you can't copy and past info out of the app with out editing the info. I would just like it to do that and it would be perfect. But if that does not bother you then go get it on the app store.

Well these are just some of the apps I can't live without. I have more, but I will save those for another day. I hope you enjoy theses apps everyday just as much as I do.

Technorati Tags: TweetDeck,Mashable,Facebook,Lockbox,NY Times,iPhone,iPod Touch

Pad or not to ipad

About a week ago, I was at my grandparents and they were watching Oprah on TV. Oprah was talking about her iPad and raving about how great it was and what not. My grandma asked me about it and I went on about it myself. I tried to give them use cases for the iPad. Then my grandma asked, "Would you like an iPad?" Normally this means, "Would you like us to buy you it?" It took me 2 minutes to reply and what I said was no. A lot went on in my head in that 2 minute delay between when she asked me. If I wanted one and me saying no. Below are the ideas that ran through my head that caused me to say no to an ipad.

I, myself, do not have an iPhone or any kind of smart phone but I feel my iPod Touch makes up for not having an iPhone. The iPod Touch can do almost anything the iPhone can do but make phone calls and take photos. For some people, not being able to take photos or videos with their device might be a problem, but for me I don't care about doing that. The other thing they may not like is that you have to carry around two devices, a phone and an iPod Touch. Once again that does not normally bother me at all. The iPod Touch can only use WIFI, yet again that does not bother me at all.

Now that you know some of the ups and downs of it, here is why I didn't want an iPad. At the time my grandparents asked me if I wanted an iPad, I had a first gen iPod Touch. The iPad is nice. The apps look better on it than an iPhone or iPod Touch. Watching movies or podcasts look better because it has a bigger screen. Reading on an iPad seems like it would be better on it then an iPhone or an iPod Touch. I think you get the point. Everything you might love about the iPhone or iPod Touch is better on an iPad cause of the bigger screen. There is one big problem with a bigger screen, and that is that it makes the device bigger. What I love about my iPod Touch is that I can use it and put it in my pocket. The ease of portability is what I love about the iPod Touch. You can't shove an iPad in your pocket, unless you have big pockets.

I also thought about what I can't do with my iPod Touch and what you can do with the iPad. The only thing I could think of was that I couldn't use the iBook store. But then I remembered in June (I think) Apple is coming out with iPhone OS 4.0, which will add the iBook store to the iPhone and iPod Touch. Though I don't really care about the iBook store. I don't like to read books, I just can't stand to sit in one place and read text for hours on end. So that does not internecine me to get an iPad, but the other things coming in iPhone OS 4.0 do. The problem being, I had a first gen iPod Touch and to get the full benefit of iPhone OS 4 you have to have a third gen iPod Touch. So would it not make more sense for me to get a third gen iPod Touch than a iPad that isn't as portable, and I would have to wait longer to get the update?

That is what made me say no to the iPad, but I did say that I would like a new iPod Touch. Now I have a new iPod Touch that will work with the update coming this summer to the iPhone and iPod Touch. It felt like forever thinking of it all, but this is what went on it my head in those 2 minutes and what I decided made sense to myself. You may have different wants, or different situations that make an iPad more suitable for you then it was for me. I am happy with my new iPod Touch and will be for many years now.

F8 Keynote

Today was the Facebook developers conference F8. Ware Mark Zuckerberg showed use some of the new things that developers will be able to use to give there users a more social experience. The keynote was focused on three key things. The open graph, instant social, and making development simple. First off they announced as of 4/21/10 they have 400 million registered people on Facebook and 36 million use the site on a mobile device.
Mark talked a lot about this thing he called the Open Graph. The Open Graph is taking your Social Graph and opening it to other places. One one the examples they used was Yelp which you can see in this video below:

From the video you just saw you can get a bit of what the Open Graph is and how it can be used. New plug-ins where announced as well, these plug-ins will help to make sites more social by adding a news feed so people can see what others have said about a article on a site. There is a like button that you can add to your site and it shows the user if other people they know have liked whatever content is as well. The last one is a tool bar that adds all that and Facebook chat to a web site but just as a bar at the bottom of a web page. All this Mark says will work without a user logging in.
Another thing that was talked about was some changes for developers so that Facebook applications can see what you are doing in real time. So lets say you play Farmville plugged in to your account if you update your profile from being in relationship to being single, as soon as you change that Zinga knows. Now that doesn't really seem that bad since lets face it these apps know probably more about us then we do. But what I think this info is going to be use for is ads so apps can have more relevant ads.
Pretty much everything that was talked about in the keynote can be used today and some of it is already implemented in sites like CNN Money, Yelp, and Pandora. I have a few screen shots:

You will see more of this I'm sure in the coming weeks other sites will add all this to there sites. The hole idea is to make user feel less alone when they join a site and to make it essayer for them to find there friends if they too are a member already and what better way to do that with then Facebook.
Some people today might say today was the day Facebook became Google scary. I for one think these new feachers are good and that someone had to do it, and since there is no one with enough umf be hind them to do it Facebook is the only ones who can do it and keep it around.

Google Apps Part 2 Reader and Calendar

Like I talked about in part one, Google started off with a search engine. Today, they offer much more then just searching. I talked about one of them already, Gmail. Now for me, no suit is complete without a calender and a RSS reader. Well, Google has you covered with Google Calender and Google Reader. I will admit that I don't use RSS readers that much anymore but it is something nice to still have in my arsenal.
    Google Reader is a RSS reader. RSS stands for Rich Site Summary. This makes it easy for people to subscribe to a web site or a blog like you would a newspaper. This can be useful, but the down side is you don't get the whole site. You would get something like this:

    If all you want is the article, then it works great. I find that Google Reader helps organize better then other readers do. When you first open up Google Reader, it takes you to a home page where it has the top stories of the sites you subscribe to right there. Then, over to the side at the bottom is all the sites you subscribe to. Above that is recommended RSS feeds that the reader thinks you might enjoy reading. Then there are statistic options and ways to share stories with your friends.

    Adding somthing to your reader is vary easy, just go to the site you want to add and look for the RSS icon in your browser.

    Then select, "Subscribe with Google" and it will be added in Google Reader. (This is used with the web browser, Firefox). Once you subscribe to their feed, you will receive updates to the site and you will be able to read it in your Google reader. Unlike a newspaper that you get once maybe twice a day, Google reader is not normally out of date unless something goes wrong with a sites feed.

    Google Reader is a nice thing google offers so that you can have one place that you can go that has all the news you want in one place. Another thing you might want to check in the morning might be your calender. Wouldn't it be nice if Google had a calender that you could check online too... oh wait they do, and its called "Google Calender."
    Google Calender is what won me over to use Google services. Google Calender is well what you think it is, it is a calender. Compared to other online calenders, I would say, Google calender is one of the best. Oh and like everything else, it is free. So let me share why Google Calender is so great.

    I don't really think I need to explain how to use it but I will share a lot of what it can do. I enjoy that you can set it to remind you via e-mail. This works for me because I'm in and out of my email all day long, so I can receive reminders that easily. If you have an iPhone, an iPod touch, or any phone that supports Microsoft Exchange then you can have the calender sync to your phone. This allows you to have access to your calender wherever you are, online or offline. To set it up just go to google.com/sync where there are instructions on how to set it up on your mobile device. Once you have it set up, you can add events to your calender on your mobile device or even get rid of events. Everything you do will effect your Google Calender online so your calender is always up to date.

    I believe just that alone makes Google Calender worth the little bit of time it takes to setup. It keeps me from forgetting inportant things. If you are a busy person and you want a calender that will just work and you don't have to mess around with it, then Google Calender is a good option for you. This ends part 2 stay tune for part 3.

iPhone OS 4?

Apple will be showing a preview of iPhone OS 4 on April 8th this was reported by Mashable earlier you can read more about this over at Mashable. Now that you know that, I want to share a quick story. I was syncing my iPod and saw that the next time it was going to look for updates is going to be on 4/8/2010 the same day Apple is going to show off iPhone OS 4. I e-mail Apple asking about this but as of right I have not herd anything back just yet. What I think will happen is there will be a minor update that day. Not iPhone OS 4. I took a screen shot of what my iTunes said so you can see. If there is any updates I will keep you all posted.

Google Apps Part 1

Google started off as a little search "engine that could," that has now become a huge company that offers a lot more then just searching for information. Most people go to Google and don't even know that there is more then just the "search" option. I feel it is about time that some of these gems become unhidden. Google has many services such as, Gmail, Google reader, Google Voice, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and many more. For now I'm just going to focus on the services that make things that used to be difficult, more efficient.
    I will start with Gmail since it is the birthday boy today (as I write this on April 1st). Gmail is Google's e-mail service. But it is really more then that, it is an e-mail web app with a grate contact system and calender. If you use Outlook to view your e-mail, and you are looking for a free version then Gmail is the free online equivalent to Outlook. Unlike Outlook, Gmail is a lot simpler. Its also nice that once you have a Gmail address its like you have a golden ticket, because now you can use other things like Google Calender and Google Documents which for me makes things like Outlook and Word useless to me.
    Some people have a problem with things like Gmail because they are online. So if you don't have an Internet connection you can't get to your e-mail. Well, Google thought of that and there is a Google solution and it is Gears. Gears is a browser plug in which lets you access your Gmail offline.

Just install Gears and restart your browser, go to Gmail and it will start syncing. Now you have your Gmail anywhere you go.

Gmail is a Google service that is not very well known. For most people, Gmail is good enough for them and has more than what they need. It is nice to have more than not enough when you need something. If there is anything Gmail does not have, well just remember it's free and you really cant complain. Part 2 will be up later in the week so stay tuned!