In a discussion about possible posts with some colleagues, I realized that there were subjects that you might want to know that I either don’t want to or simply shouldn’t write about.  I say shouldn’t because it’s not an area of expertise or more realistically – someone has already written about it better than I ever could. This post will be a mishmash of links to sites that do what I don’t.  Hopefully, it will provide useful reading.

“Why don’t you write review’s on iPhone/iPod touch apps?”

I’d love to but I’m neither qualified nor quick enough to write useful reviews.  I recommend two simple strategies for keeping up with the fast moving app market.

1. Bookmark this link.  I know it sounds silly but keeping a Google search of “best iPhone apps” will give you a simple starting point for iPhone and iPod touch updates.  As an example, I’m writing this on 1/31/2010 and the results I found were:

   1. Top iPhone Applications – TIME

   2. The 35 Best iPhone Apps Of The Year (So Far)

   3. The Best iPhone Apps

2. Check the following sites periodically:
   1. AppVee – simple reviews on nearly every app I’ve every looked for…
   2. FreshApps – a neat  site where apps are ranked based on “freshness”…
   3. AppCraver – similar to AppVee.
   4. Apptism – another in the same vein (there are thousands of sites like this).  I really just liked the name.

“Why don’t you write about the iPad?”

Ugh.  I don’t have anything against the iPad, but isn’t there enough hype without my rather weak thoughts?  If you are interested, each of the following sites has provided full coverage…

1. lifehacker – more than a few articles on the subject
2. techcrunch – a slightly techie bent
3. Ars Technica – if you want the detailed analysis from all geeky perspectives (I couldn’t find a tag for iPad on this one, but there are plenty of articles).

“Why don’t you do more male modeling?”

Just kidding.

Anyway – this type of post might start to be a recurring segment on just an asterisk.  Keep the questions coming – I’ll try to help in whatever way I can.

~ab

I have a webcam which I never thought was bad but whenever I video-chat with anyone they always say it’s grainy and the picture is not very good.  So, I was planning on getting a new one and was wondering what to look for.  Is expensive always better?

Great questions!  There are two major concerns with a webcam (other than price) – Frames and Resolution.  However, before you think about buying something new, consider the following options.

Connection Speed and other animals

Although I’d love to tell you that getting a new webcam would do the trick, there are other issues that you should understand.  I found a great resource here with some very technical details.  However, before you dive into that, I would suggest trying the following:

1. Make sure your camera plugs into your computer directly (and not through a hub).  You don’t want any other devices to share your potential speed.
2. Remember that Skype video quality will be better after a few minutes of a call, so don’t expect the best quality when you first connect.
3. Do a speed test of your connection at Speed.io.  A slow connection will make all of your webcam purchasing totally pointless…

If all that turned out fine, then on to the techie gooey details…

Frames

I guess it’s not much of a secret.  The more frames you have, the more times you get to see the image, therefore the smoother the result.  The human eye does not process images like a video camera, so we don’t have a “frame rate” for our eyes.  However, just to give you a point of reference, at the movies, we enjoy 25 frames per second (fps), while on TV it is more often around 30 fps.

In the interest of completeness, I should add that the human eye makes all of this a bit complicated by adding a twist: a blurred image at a slower frame rate can look the same as a sharp image at a higher frame rate.  This isn’t terribly important, unless you are planning to webcast from a moving car, but it’s worth knowing that the subject isn’t quite as simple as it sounds.

My theory, when it comes to webcams, is that you want to stream video, so you’re looking for 30fps.  The good news?  Nearly all camera’s these days, over 10 dollars, have an acceptable frame rate.  All you have to do is know that frame rate exists and watch out for frame rates (if listed) under 30fps.

Resolution

Resolution is the number of pixels per inch.  What is a pixel?

A decent zoom	A crazy zoom

Do you see the little tiny red dot in my crazy zoom?  That is a pixel.  In a way, it’s just a piece of color information.  Make it red (like in my example) and it causes a tiny defect in the image.  The more pixels you have per inch of space, the more information is there for a computer to display.

72 pixels per inch	5 pixels per inch

So what kind of resolution should you buy?

Here are the options (as of the date of this post) on CNET.com.  352×288 stinks.  1280×960 rocks.

The thing to remember is that the resolution is simply how good the image taken could be.  Therefore a really, really cheap webcam that can pump out 1280×960 may not be the best choice.

Also, watch out for “effective resolution”.  Sometimes a low resolution camera will tout itself as a better product by saying that with software, which they include, you can increase the resolution from the standard provided by the lens.  My personal advice would be – try to find a decently priced camera, with good resolution out of the box.

Most internet connections cannot support the highest resolutions of today’s webcams.  However, getting a better top end may improve performance around 800×600 (where most people end up streaming).

Conclusion

I hope this helps.  To summarize, you need to look for a frame rate near 30fps, although you might only stream at 800×600 – consider a higher resolution and finally, remember to check your connection speed.  If you follow those basic guidelines, you’ll be fine with a mid-range webcam (at this moment between 30 and 60 USD).

Good luck!

~ab

Q:

Bill wrote:

I need to get some old emails from [my previous email provider] to be able to transfer them to Google so I can forward them to people. I can read and likely print the defunct notes, but can I transfer them to my Google email accounts?

A:

Thanks for the question Bill.  The good news is that I have an answer… the bad is that it’s not super easy and there isn’t a quick tool to help.  However, you can do it and I’m going to show you how.  There are three main steps:

Step 1 – Enable your email to allow IMAP connections.

IMAP is simply a way for your email program (like outlook) to communicate with your Gmail account (passing information like what folder a message is in and if it’s read or unread).  The procedure is pretty straight forward.

To enable IMAP in Gmail:

1. Sign in to Gmail.
2. Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page.
3. Click Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
4. Select Enable IMAP.
5. Save your changes.

See that wasn’t so hard!  Now for the next step.

Step 2 – Setup Gmail in your Microsoft Outlook

It may seem strange that we’re setting up Gmail in Outlook (when you wanted to setup your Outlook in Gmail).  However, this is the best way to transfer emails – we just need to get the two services speaking the same language.

To setup Gmail in your Outlook, click on the following links:

• Outlook 2003
• Outlook 2007

It’s not that many steps – really the crux of the problem is the screen below (in Outlook 2003).  Be sure to follow the instructions carefully and you shouldn’t have any issues.

Step 3 – Drag and drop

Finally we come to the fun part.  Once your email from Gmail has downloaded from the servers into Outlook, you really have a combined portal for both your email accounts.  You can drag emails from one to the other!  I setup an example below – I dragged an email from my outlook drafts to my Gmail account.

And here is the result:

Conclusion:

This is the down and dirty way to move email.  If you need more control over the result, consider using the folders in Gmail.  There are several other tutorials out on Google.  In my case, when I first tried this, I simply needed to get the data onto my Gmail account.  I didn’t really care how.

I hope that this has been a helpful little tutorial.  Feel free to call out any problems in the comments!

~ab