Anyway, pushing my soapbox back under the bed, I have an iPhone and looking back at my activities for the last few weeks, I am struck by how little I’ve created with my new toy – it’s as if someone crammed every form of media into an all powerful demon in my front right pocket (the left pocket just doesn’t feel right after years of carrying my blackberry in my right).  I figure that, rather than fighting these forces, I should embrace them.  In that vein, here are my favorite apps on the iPhone, purposely split into groups, consumption and creation.

Consumption

1. MobileRSS is an application that I started using on my iPod touch. I’m sure that there are updated RSS readers, but this one does everything I want.  I can sync to my google reader feeds, so that I only have to mark something read once.  I can also tweet, save for later with ReadItLater, open in Safari etc.  The real kicker of the app is the design, which is fluid and intuitive: swipe left or right to move between posts, pull the page down or up to load new posts.

There is a free version that is add supported, but if you’re consuming feeds through a firehouse, it’s worth the 3 dollars to have a cleaner experience.

2. ReadItLater is a way of bookmarking things that you want to (duh) read later.  It’s pretty simple and their site walks you through the details of getting the app.  I like the integration with MobileRSS, but I love how ReadItLater content is available via the web too.  I can bookmark something on my computer and read it on my iPhone through the app or I can grab something on my phone (usually large videos) and read/watch from the comfort of my Mac.

There is a free version of this that suits me just fine, as I rarely share via Twitter or other outlets from the app itself.

3. Kindle for iPhone provides a remarkably comfortable reading experience.  If you have a Kindle and have purchased content, you can download one of your books from the digital library and start reading (in seconds).  I’ve forgotten my Kindle while traveling a few times and the iPhone/iPod Touch version allowed me to keep reading.  You can also email passages of text, something that even my real kindle can’t handle.

The Kindle app is free as in beer and speech (but you can only access your paid content as far as I can tell).

4. Games, games, games… I don’t play games for long, but when I’m sitting on a runway, or waiting in line, it’s a great way to pass the time.  I recommend: Collapse, Angry Birds, Ragdoll Blaster 1 & 2, Trenches, Finger Physics free, Unblock Me, Zen Bound 1 & 2, N.O.V.A (this last one is an action packed 1st person shooter, but the rest are simple puzzle games).

These apps may run you from 1 to 3 bucks…

5. Pandora, Last.FM and Grooveshark are all streaming music services that have iPhone apps.  It has to be said: these crush your battery life.  However, in a pinch, it can help relieve the boredom of your overplayed music collection.

Pandora and Last.FM are free.  Grooveshark will require a pro account (worth it at 3 bucks a month) but you can listen to anything in their vast library.

6. This American Life and NPR are streaming radio.  Again, the battery thing is a problem, but it’s sooooo worth it if you’re stuck in an airport and need to drown out the angry people on cell phones…

This American Life is paid but supports NPR.  The NPR news app is free.

Creation

1. Twitter is what it is – love it or hate it, there is an app.  Including Twitter proves that my definition of creation is not terribly strict. I like the official version of the app as it’s free and full-featured, but there are other clients out there that work just fine.

2. Evernote is the app form of the service Evernote.com that I’ve written about before.  Their tagline is “remember everything” and that pretty much describes how I use the app.  I take photos of whiteboards, notes during meetings, voice notes or meeting recordings, and even iPhone screenshots and upload all that to my Evernote account to work on later.  It’s my memory dump for everything that isn’t a task and it’s the starting point for nearly every blog post I write (including this one).

Evernote is free, but you can get a pro account for a few extra features.

3. Remember the Milk, like Evernote, is the app form of a larger service.  Remember the Milk (RTM) allows me to create and save tasks to my master task that I view on my computer, but it also allows me to mark tasks complete, set reminders, etc all from my iPhone.  Like I said before, most of my content goes to Evernote, but if it’s a task (again loooooooose definition of creation) then I use RTM.

RTM requires that you have a Pro account, which runs $20 per year, but you can use the web interface for free.

4. Dragon Dictation is a natural language processing app for your phone that allows you to dictate text and then copy it into emails, text messages or anywhere else that you can hit paste.  I was blown away when I first tried this, as the accuracy is freakishly good. You might be dubious about the benefits of an app for this, but try it out.  It’s fantastic.

Dragon Dictation is free.

5. Sketchbook is for drawing.  I can barely draw a circle, but I love scribbling out rough ideas to return to later.  I can save my images and then suck them up into Evernote for storage (see what I mean? Evernote is awesome).  It’s a one-trick-poney, but then again, how many tricks do you need your ponies to do?

Sketchbook is $2.99.

So the final score is 6/5 Consumption/Creation.  I probably could have squeezed in another one or two on either side, but to be honest, consumption could have destroyed creation: I didn’t even include the “reference” part of the consumption family.  Apps like Menupages, Google Maps, Yelp, and TripIt are also a huge part of my iPhone usage.  I was nice to creation and drew the line closer to the middle…

What apps do you use to consume/create?  Shout it out in the comments.

~ab

Note: I’ve written about the iPod touch and my apps before, but I think that this post shows off some of the iPhone specific functions (as well as things I’ve learned since my last post).

After all that, I was utterly stupefied to learn that I had missed the biggest, humdinger of an argument for the upgrade.  I went on Gazelle.com to try to sell my old Blackberry and iPod and discovered that  Blackberry + iPod really does equal an iPhone.  I had known this would be true functionally (phone + music player = iPhone), but I had never really thought that selling my old hardware would cover the cost of my new stuff!  As a thank you to Gazelle, I thought I’d give them a bit of a shout out.  You will get more money if you try to sell your stuff with Craigslist, but the added convenience of this service is worth checking out.

Using the site is very easy, head over to Gazelle.com and enter your product in the search field.  In the example below, you can see when you start typing, the products that match appear.  Make sure you select the right “generation” or model of your phone or gadget because the price given will be based on this information.

Once you’ve found your gadget, choose Search and you’ll see some questions that will help Gazelle refine their offer.  Obviously, a gadget with the original cables and one in good condition are going to better than those which are broken and missing accessories.

If you like the price, click on Add to Basket and the site will ask you for your address so that they can send you a prepaid box!  They’ll also allow you to select how you want to get paid.  If you choose Amazon gift card, you get an extra 5% back…

The trick to making this site work for you (as I see it) is to clean house.  Do all of your electronics in a big batch and you might be surprised by how much cash you get back.  It beats the heck out of random meetings at Starbucks so that you can sell someone your iPod from college :)

Good luck selling your gadgets.  Know of a better place to sell your stuff?  Shout it out in the comments.

~ab

6am ( 5am CST) – woke up in NYC and unplugged
1 hr music on the plane – anti-screaming baby white noise.
2 hrs in Airplane mode – reducing consumption I suppose.
1 hr talking on arrival – conference call.
20 min facetime – interactive utilities repairman visit with my wife at our apartment on her phone.
30 read emails – over the course of the morning
10 sent emails
2 photos – whiteboarding session capture
1 video (<20 sec) – simply goofing off
1 youtube clip – again, goofing off
Google Reader push all day – I read the odd article while I walk between meetings.
Exchange push all day – email is set to PUSH.
50 + text messages – Wifey and I like the chat feature.
4:30pm CST – Check point: 48% battery life.
3 app downloads – I’m still learning what is good out there…
Chatted another hour – Calls for work + personal
20 more text messages – Wifey and rental car arrangements with the team.
more emails – they just keep on comin’
9PM CST – Checkpoint: 18% battery remaining… plug in phone to sleep.

That’s not bad.  My blackberry had slightly better battery life, but I couldn’t do a few of those things… Also, it’s not like I really need to facetime every single day… Anyway, hope this helps someone decide if this is the right phone for them.  I was using it for 16 hours and still had 1/5th left to go.

Good luck in your mobile decisions.

~ab

The first step is to get the right hardware (a TV or blue ray player is probably easiest, but you can also use game consoles and other toys). Here is the list of “Netflix ready devices”.  If you’re thinking of buying a TV, why not aim for one that is Netflix ready?  If you’re kids have a console chillin’ (or you do secretly), why not use it for some free vids?  Whatever device you get, it just needs to be on the web and connected to your TV.

Once you’re setup on the hardware, the rest is easy-peasy.  When I go into Netflix, I head over to “Watch Instantly”.  This is old news – I used to sit in front of my PC and click “Play” to watch a great selection of old and new films and TV shows.  What’s new and amazing (to me) is this button:

If you click it, the media you’ve chosen can be viewed by devices other than your computer.  On your device (TV, blue ray player, etc), you just need to go to the Netflix application and voila! You’re choice is there to watch!

I should point out that you need a good internet connection if you want to stream HD movies to your TV.  If you’re planning on doing this over a wireless network, I suggest that you bolster your wireless signal to as close to MAX as possible.  You’ll need every bit of it.  I’ve written about wireless networks before, so read this if you need help.

And then… well, you’re done! You can now watch movies from your Netflix enabled device. There isn’t much more for me to say. In the end, this is more of a hardware look-what-is-possible post than one about software.  I hope you get to play with this technology soon – you’re missing out!

Enjoy,

~ab

Mass Storage – the USB jack

The internet – the Ethernet Jack

Digital Video Recording and Playback – the PC connector

When I got my new TV, the features above made me wonder why no one had told me this was all possible before… Well now you don’t have the same excuse.  Ha!  If you’re still nursing an old CRT box, now is the time to explore an upgrade – and the “extras” like those described above will sweeten the deal quite nicely.

What?  Almost 6PB?  I have that much data on my external hard-drive?

What is funny about this, at least in a geeky way, is that 6 Petabytes is a lot.  In fact, it’s so much, that I couldn’t name a single natural or man-made quantity even approaching a PB (and my spell check keeps telling me that it’s not a word).

To prove a little explanation, I did a little searching and found a few interesting hits.  For example, James Cameron’s 3D money suck Avatar takes up 1PB when it’s fully rendered.  The same article claims that a 1PB MP3 at standard quality would play for 32 years.  This site claims that all the US research institutions combined would equal 2 PB.

In a effort to get my head around this, I did a little math.  0.001 PB is a Terabyte.  Terabytes are becoming more common these days and I think I’ve got a good grip on those.  I tend to thing in terms of DVDs.  Your average DVD is about 8 Gigabytes.  Therefore a Terabyte is about 125 DVDs and a Petabyte is 125 thousand.  That is about the same as every single movie made in the world between 1999 and 2007 (Source).

Side note: Despite all this fun, you might be asking “what the heck is a byte anyway?”  The answer is simple if you’re talking about text.  Open a new text document and type 1 character.  Save it and the file will be 1 byte large.  If you’re talking about images, movies or even word docs, there is no human equivalent – to explain we would need to talk about binary, hexadecimals, octets and other nonsense.  Stick with the text answer – 1 character = 1 byte.

The error message was obviously inaccurate.  There is no way that my game required 125 thousand dvds to install.  (If this happens to you, the most likely source was a zip file too large for Windows 7 to handle (5.7GB).)  However, despite the inaccuracy of my error message, the real point is this:  These numbers, strange and somewhat silly as they may be, are part of our lives now.  In my opinion, it’s worth taking a look around and questioning what they mean.

Of all the research I did to write this, this site did the best job of explaining the different terms.  Go check it out!  Also, if you really want to laugh at how geeky programmers are, check out the Wikipedia entry for a “nibble” (1/2 a byte… I’m not even kidding).

~ab

If you’re trying to decide between the hot new Nexus One vs. the iPhone 3Gs, here’s the skinny on what sets them apart. Both phones sport the aesthetic appeal of that sleek “wow” factor sheen, but there are a few differences you should know about which may make one a better fit for your needs than the other.

Despite its light weight compared to the iPhone 3Gs, the Nexus One picks up where the iPhone left off in the bench-press department. Its faster processor and more efficient Organic LED screen will keep your video sizzling sharp and your images pinpoint crisp while making the overall screen color reproduction more accurate (though strangely enough the orange colors on some of the YouTube videos I streamed to the Nexus One appeared a little too red for my liking).

The built in camera flash on the Nexus One is a very useful feature in low-lighting. It’s also a feature that the iPhone currently lacks, though rumor has it that Apple already put in a big order for flash devices for its next generation of iPhones. No doubt Apple will also be ramping up its camera resolution which is currently only 3-megapixels on the iPhone compared to the whopping 5-megapixel deliciousness of the Nexus One camera.

Unlike the iPhone, the Nexus One sports a full hands-free driving GPS navigation system with turn-by-turn directions functionality included right out of the box. On the iPhone, you only get the standard Google maps directions right now which is basically a little dot moving around on a 2D map…not very impressive unless you are willing to shell over the cash for a third party navigation application such as the $70 Navigon or the $80 iGo My Way.

Aside from these extra perks included with the Nexus One, the main point of difference I encountered between the two phones was their dependence upon wireless connectivity. iPhone applications run as smoothly when you are out of wireless range as they do when you are in range because your data is largely saved to the phone and is re-synched when your phone reception returns. This approach keeps your most of your data on your physical phone device, at risk of being lost along with the device if that data has not been synchronized and backed up first.  The Nexus One takes the opposite approach. It seems geared toward storing as much of your personal data as possible on Google’s computer clouds rather than on your phone’s memory. Unfortunately, while it does mean that your data is theoretically safer, it also means that you have to have a strong wireless connection for many of your applications to be useful. This is particularly true if you’re looking to leverage some of the coolest features Google provides such as voice recognition (see below).

The included Android Calendar application is a perfect example of why storing data on the cloud isn’t always the best solution. The included Calendar application is barely functional without a direct link to the internet, and it will not operate unless you have first assigned it to a preexisting Google Calendar account. While these limitations may not be an issue for someone who already uses Google Calendar and who has frequent internet access, I found it an unnecessary burden, and wasn’t thrilled about being forced to use a the Google Calendar which was only recently endowed with integrated Task features.

There are a few other ‘gotchas’ you should be aware of before you buy, such as the not-so-multi-touch feature of the Nexus One’s touch screen. The iPhone’s multi-touch feature is more than just fancy hand-waving; it allows you to use more than one finger at a time to interact with your mobile phone screen. This makes the phone easier to operate and cuts down on the number of buttons that would otherwise clutter its interface. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the Nexus One. Though the Android interface itself has been given an appealing facelift, (with live animated backgrounds and the like), it is currently limited to single touch functionality. [Note: You can enable multi-touch yourself if you are brave enough to attempt a ROM hack on your Nexus One].

Another iPhone feature I missed in the Nexus One was a simple notepad. You may be able to download one from the Android Market, but not having one pre-installed is inconvenient, and it makes taking notes or jotting down ideas difficult when no pen and paper are handy. If you’re creative, you could record videos of yourself talking and then sync them with Evernote, but if you’re looking for more direct digital copies of you paper masterpieces, check out the Scan2PDF Mobile application which instantly converts phone photos of your notes into fully searchable PDFs.

As any personal trainer will tell you, you won’t see your best results until you’ve put in the necessary hard work and preparation. In the same way, the Nexus One really starts to shine brightest once you start using one of its most underappreciated yet most awesome features, its voice recognition technology. Leveraging the technology it has long been toiling over for its Google Voice telephone service, Google’s Nexus One makes searching as easy as pressing a button and telling your phone what you want it to find. Seriously, it’s that simple! After a few tries, the phone will train itself to recognize your voice patterns and will identify pretty much any word you throw at it. And since every search you do is logged with Google, I’m guessing that your subsequent search patterns will be used to teach the software so that it continually gets better at recognizing which of your verbal commands it interpreted successfully.

Even more useful, and novel by comparison to what the iPhone offers, is the voice-to-text feature which magically transcribes whatever you say to your phone into an email or text message. This voice recognition feature, in particular, turned out to be a big time saver for me, just like using voice recognition in the built-in GPS navigation made hands-free navigation that much easier and safer while driving.

If you currently have an iPhone and are looking for those extra features that will squirt a few more ounces of productivity into your life, you may want to wait until the next iPhone iteration comes out. The additional benefits the Nexus One offers are mostly under the hood, and while they do add up, the margin of difference they make depends upon how ambitious you are about tackling the learning curve burn cycle, especially if you’re already acclimated to the iPhone interface. On the other hand, if you aren’t in love with the iPhone or if you are upgrading from a previous non-iPhone model and are looking for a top of the line phone with tremendous long-term potential, the Nexus One is probably your best bet.

And in case you’re still deliberating over the technical details behind the gloss, I recommend checking out Gizmodo’s definitive smartphone comparison chart for a great side-by-side comparison of these top two contenders.

~jp

Justin Palmen is a recovering technoholic with a passion for everything fast, mobile, and cloud enabled.  When not working in cyberspace, he enjoys traveling to exotic locations and would love to travel in real space some day.  He’d also love to receive your questions or comments at jp@justanasterisk.com

Although this data is going to be old as soon as I post about it (for reference, the current date is Tuesday, November 17, 2009), a great study was just released by Square Trade.

Here is the link

For those unwilling to wade through it, here are some highlights:

1 in 3 Laptops fail over 3 years

As you go shopping this holiday season for a new notebook, make sure you take this into account.  One third of laptops are going to die in the first 3 years.  Do you really want to spend that much?  This certainly isn’t the last computer you’ll purchase.

Netbooks fail 20% more than laptops

To provide the full picture, it’s actually 20% more than entry level laptops (higher quality laptops fare even better against the netbook).  I have to say, I’m not entirely surprised that a notebook perfect for your lap (the netbook), which suffers much more heat strain than the average laptop, wouldn’t last as long.  At the end of the day, remember that heat is the enemy…

ASUS & Toshiba the most reliable

This is simple and sound data – ASUS and Toshiba most reliable.  No ambiguity there.  Delving deeper into the numbers, I was happy to see that Apple and Sony did well…  Here is the chart from the doc.

So that’s it – some fun mid-week reading and just in time for the black Friday shopping madness.  Be careful out there and don’t forget to do your research!

~ab

This could will happen to you at some point.  Perhaps you won’t get the jet engine hard drive like I did last night, but there are many variations: the blank screen, the system freezing every 10 minutes (ironically due to overheating), USB ports failing, rather important keys like the letter “a” just refusing to work… The list of possible hardware faults is endless.  So if it’s inevitable, what can you do to be prepared?  Although there’s probably no way to prepare you for everything, here is a list of things that I recommend.

From day zero

I don’t know about you, but when I bought my last computer, the part of the experience that almost ruined everything was trying to get the salesman to leave me alone with that stupid service plan.  However, if you’re wondering if the expensive service plan is worth it (and have a few minutes) read this article.  

The short answer is this – you should consider your options carefully at purchase time.  We often reject these plans like car rental insurance, assuming (correctly – read this) that companies profit largely from these extra packages.  However, this doesn’t mean the package is worthless – it just means they are incented to sell it to you.  If you go the length of the contract without a problem, you might lose your dough.  However, one problem will normally pay the year’s cost. 

Even with a service plan: Backup your stuff!!!  Read this previous article for details, but this should be a given.  If Mozy and Carbonite aren’t for you, try Dropbox and this previous post.

Regularly there after

Your car gets a tune up every X miles.  Your bike gets a chain oiled every 6 months.  Why wouldn’t your computer get the same every month?  Especially when you CAN SCHEDULE THIS STUFF TO RUN WITHOUT YOU.  Seriously people, don’t be lazy.  You can setup a basic PC maintenance program in a matter of minutes.  If you’ve had your machine for a while, take a look at this guide for the overhaul manual. 

When trouble strikes – know a few resources

Before you decide to delve into ANY computer repair adventure, consider this – Ignoring resulting hardware purchases, is the following true?

  {Time to find the source of the problem}
X {What you consider your time is worth}    <   {100 bucks}

Your time is probably worth more than 10 bucks an hour (consider this fun calculator if you don’t trust me) and consider that a rather simple problem for a professional might take you 10 hours.  I’ve done a little research and for around 100 dollars, you can get most problems diagnosed and sometimes even repaired.  I’m not an economics guy, but even I can see that most of the time – it’s just not worth it.  For a list of people who might be able to help, go to the bottom of this post.

Disclaimer over – If after the above, you still want to tackle your hardware demons, here are some ideas:

Write down the details of your error and search using normal English – A search for hard drive over exertion may sound technical but retrieves only 106,000 articles (mostly about health).  On the other hand, “noisy hard drive” results in 17,600,000 hits and most of them (that I had the patience to review) were relevant.

Take forum posts with a gigantic grain of salt – If you can log in a post, that means that any ninny can log in and answer.  Treat forums more as a way to review the terminology involved (you might learn the right terms for a better search) and to hear the horror stories to understand the gravity of your situation.   Once you’ve done this, step up your game without the help of crowdsourcing…

Consider these flow charts– A pro will know these from experience, but you may need to print them out and go step by step.  WARNING – these are not simple.  If you’re uncomfortable with terms like hard drive cycling, then this is not for you.

Use the knowledge that came with your machine – If it’s an XP machine, then you can use this article from Microsoft as a starting point.  If you’re running a PC, this is a good list of how to guides.  If you’re running a Mac, try simply going to the Mac Support site.

Know when to call it quits – services like Geek Squad and Gurus2Go will be able to diagnose problems much more quickly than you will.  Accept that, move on and if necessary, give them a call.  Knowing when to call it quits will probably be the most cost-effective thing you can do.

That’s about it.  I know I’m a little light on the Mac resources.  I’d love to provide more but I simply don’t have the links.  Shoutout anything important that I’ve missed in the comments.

~ab