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My QR Code

One thing I think is pretty sweet about my N95, the barcode reader. I mean that’s pretty damn slick, I wish I saw these codes in more places. Also wish the iPhone had a better way to implement code readers. Every one I tried was piss poor compared to the reader that came with the N95.

NeoReader (iTunes Link), is ok, but no where near as cool.

The N95 app is a live view through the camera, like… mmm… a camera, and there’s bounding lines showing you how to line up the code, and it shows you that it’s trying to lock on to the code.

NeoReader has you take a pic, and then ok the app to use it, then it tries to process it. If you weren’t lined up right, or anything like that, well try again. The N95 app at least shows you as it’s working so you know if you’re off center a bit.

I’m not sure if it’s an iPhone OS limitation, or not, but QR Code readers for the iPhone have a long way to go.

Tags: QR code

iPhone App Review - i Heart Radio

Nicole told me about iHeart Radio (iTunes link), so I figured I’d try it out. From what I gather, radio stations all around the country are teaming up to provide radio over the internet. I’m guessing it’s to combat the likes of Pandora, though I can’t imagine the RIAA likes the idea, but since two apps can’t run on the iPhone at the some time (yet), there’s little risk of the dreaded piracy.

The app is pretty straight forward, the app presents you with a list of local cities, all cities, your favorites, etc.

There’s four buttons at the bottom; Stations, Favorites, Tagged Songs, and Shake it.

One nice thing is the tagging of songs, you’re listening to the radio and can tag the song to buy in iTunes, pretty handy.

The app is a bit crashy, if you’re listening to a station, and go back to the stations list or the favorites, it’s as likely as not to kill the app. It’s very much a versions one app, but still pretty well made. The UI is pretty clean, although the playing button, looks like a checkbox, so it took me a while to figure out I could stop playplack.

I know it’s cool that the iPhone has the accelerometers but really, every app does not need to be shake friendly. UrbanSpoon, ok maybe, but really, do I need to shake my iPhone to pick a radio station? Is anyone that bored or starved for content that they’ll explore the radio freqs from across the US? Even if you find a kick ass station out of Boca Raton, it’s not like you can listen to it in the car or at the house. But oh well the fad will hopefully pass.

It’s a cute gimmick, but like I said, really? The Utility of the thing, just not seeing.

Overall, great app. It’s nice to have my favorite local stations, I’m hoping 100.3 shows up as well, but 93.3 will hold me over.

Tags: iPhone

The Cloud isn’t all that

Something struck me as interesting this morning. I’ve written two articles for the new Flex Authority Quarterly Update, and we used Buzzword to hand the articles. The Author writes, shares with editor, who shares with tech and copy editors. Then we do the dance of copy/technical editing and review.

The other day, Editor in Cheif Jeff posed a question. “Move to word, from Buzzword?” There were a few reasons, easier approval/dismissal of tracked changes and comments, etc.

as of this morning there are 13 messages in that thread, all saying “Yeah, Word is fine.”

Many of the authors cited being able to work offline as a major plus for Word.

I gotta say I agree. I love Google Docs,  I use buzzword for 360|Flex and The Flex Show, but there’s something to be said for being able to work when there’s no WiFi. Like aboard planes, trains and automobiles, in the backwoods, at the ski resort, etc. There’s still a lot of the country, let alone world that are offline, so sometimes it’s nice to not have all your tools rely on the cloud. I use MobileMe to keep my macs in sync, I also make use of my iDisk a lot! I sync the entire thing locally, because I’ve wanted to work and guess what, not online, no iDisk. Thankfully iDisk syncing doesn’t completely suck, so it’s a pretty good experience.

As an example, when I was in Japan earlier this year, WiFi was non existant. I never saw an access point once. The hotel didn’t offer it, they had a ethernet cord in the wall for $15 a day. The Starbucks (yes, really) had none, the local coffee shops, had none. I suspect because everyone’s phone had internet, and they text and IM through that. While being offline isn’t the worst thing in the world, especially on vacation, it’s nice to have the option. I didn’t.

I think we’re in an interesting time; on the one side we have Adobe, Microsoft, Google, et al. pushing for Photoshop online, Buzzword, Office online, google docs, google reader, etc. They’re pushing really hard to make us want to be online all the time. To only edit docs in the cloud, to store our docs, our emails, our RSS feeds, etc all in the cloud. However on the other side of that “go online” agenda is the reality that wifi isn’t everywhere. Laptops don’t ship with built in cellular modems (OK some small few do), and tethering plans range from free to really expensive, if you have a phone that can even do it. The truth is, we’re offline a lot. More than I think Adobe, Google and Microsoft would like to think.

In my opinion we’re still quite a ways from a place were “being online” is a ubiquitous condition. I think the real technology winners will be the companies that can make their offerings work in both worlds. Buzzword as an AIR app. Google docs syncing locally through Google Gears. I actually saw a gDocs offline gears app, but haven’t seen it in a while, and the 1 time I tried to use it, it wasn’t remotely in sync, not sure if I needed to open it once in a while to sync or what. I assumed since it was gears it’d be in sync from the last time I was online? Guess not.

What do you think? Are you using only cloud based tools? Still using Word or Pages, etc to keep things locally where you always have access?

Tags: Cloud Computing, RIA

Community on and off line

On Monday Tom and I participated in the Program for the Future Conference. He was onsite at the Tech. I was at home working, and watching the event in Second Life.

I’m not a fan of online only conferences, I think they’re aims (stated) are good, but the experience is bad. Conferences are as much networking, hallway conversations, as much as learning, sit in chair experiences. Let’s be honest, sitting in a chair, at work or at home for 8 hours watching online video of a presenter, is not exactly a great user experience. Sure it appeals to some folks, that’s fine, but I think until we’re all wearing helmets and truly interacting, it’s more a gimmick than a serious endeavor. Case in point, I couldn’t get anyone at my office interested in Aral’s conference. Sitting at home on a weekend, to watch a breeze preso, was not at all appealling to them, and since the local hubs were in NY, London, and a few other places, the RL (Real Life) networking wasn’t.

So this event, took a different approach, which I think makes more sense. Tom registered for the RL event, paid his fee (not much either, which was nice) and was in the room. I paid nothing (it was free to attend virtually), and sat in 1 of three Second Life gathering places.

The one I was at, “Tech 2″ had a good turn out, I’d say 50ish avatars. Not bad at all. The other benefit was that Second Life provided an awesome back channel for the event, a few people that were physically present, were also in SL. As were “moderators” so to speak.

The RL to SL interaction actually left a bit to be desired. The mural in the screen shot, had SL post its that we could use, and in RL there were post its, but no inter relation. Obviouslya touch problem, but still made it a little isolated feeling.

Also to ask questions, SL users had to visit a website to submit a question. It would have been a much more interactive experience if, say there was a screen at the event with SL on it, or that the in world moderator folks could pass on our questions, it made for a kind of disjointed experience.

Overall the attempt was awesome. They did a really good (as much as can be done I think) job of merging SL and RL into a single event. I have to give kudo’s to SL or whomever does the tech behind the video, that video and audio seemed very well in sync, which was nice. Tom and I were chatting a bit, and I wasn’t like “What? that hasn’t happened yet”

Are events like this the future? No I don’t think so. Maybe the distant future, but not any time soon. There’s too much signal loss. I was sitting watching my SL screen, it was very hard to do my work (since I wasn’t ‘at’ the conference I still had work to do) since leaving SL I miss the chat, which is the backchannel of the event.

I do think however this type of Rl and SL offering helps expand and encourage community. There was hundreds more people talking, sharing ideas, etc, that wouldn’t have been able to, since they weren’t phyisically present. The networking is nil, which is why these virtual events are not a replacement, but still as a way to augment an event, they’re awesome!

A note to the organizers, for 8 people, the event was not very smooth. If it’s going to be an annual event, I suggest hiring pros to do the organizing, or put a little more into the little things. Just my thoughts.

Tags: community, Conferences, Second Life

My review of the Macbook

I realize I’ve not put down my thoughts on my new Macbook so here they are.

It’s ok.I’m coming from a Macbook Pro. I figured I didn’t need a Pro since I’m not writing code daily, and I don’t game, so I didn’t need a beefier video card. Also since I have the Macbook Air I wanted to swap out my Sprint ExpressCard for a USB model. So Macbook it was.

I got the Macbook just before Adobe MAX, and took it with me, to break in and play with :)

Exterior:

The unibody is awesome. Dodge did it, it sucked, Apple did it, it worked sweetly! There’s not even the slightest flex when you pick it up by a corner, which I experienced often with my MBP. There’s no creaking or anything. No screws to be seen, which is simply prettier :)

ports:

I like the Optical drive slot being on the side. The few times I ever used the bay on my MBP it was on my lap and I had to shuffle the machine and myself around since the slot was front facing. Side facing is nice.

The ports being on a single side is nice. Previously it seemed like there was little rhyme or reason to where ports were on mac laptops. I kinda wish they were on the right since, most of us are righties, corded mice (I know, so 2002) have to go around. Oh well. My main gripe with the ports, is the closeness, they’re almost on top of each other! the two USB ports are so close that anything that isn’t a USB cable, requires an extender if you plan on using the other port. My new Sprint broadband device, is thin enough to work with the Macbook Air, but too wide. USB drives, too wide. So sadly a USB hub or extension cable is required. I carry both in my bag now.

Screen:

Glossy is ass! I don’t know what Steve and company are thinking. They obviously never leave the mothership and see daylight, or have a conference room with windows. My Air has a glossy, and now the MB, so I’m essentially stuck to one side of our main conference room. Sitting with my back to our windows, out of the question. I have noticed that cranking the brightness up all the way helps to counter act the daylight (Yeah I’m a day walker, but I can’t help it), of course that also gives me a good 38 minutes of battery life… Call Col. Carter! I’m hoping to find a matte screen cover, kinda like a privacy filter, but with out the privacy, since I don’t care about that, really.

Trackpad:

It’s alright. It sounded revolutionary when Steve talked about it, but really it’s just a track pad. I find myself messing it up, since for years I’ve rested my thumb on the place the button would be, but now that’s part of the trackpad, so it whigs out once in a while.

I haven’t figured out a consistent or useful use for 3 and 4 fingered gestures. I’ve tried to use it for expose, no good, since it seems to catch the gesture only 3 out of 4 times. So other than having more drag room, it’s not really doing anything for me.

So overall

I really like the new macbook, it’s got more power than my MBP so all things being equal it’s better, and the too close USB ports, are an annoyance at best. I’ve been doing a lot of video editing for work, and it’s handled it all like a champ. It’s a good machine, I give it 3 snaps in Z formation.

Tags: Apple, Macbook

Friday Funny, error message with attitude

Got this a few days ago. I wonder if HAL was back there somewhere?

Tags: User Experience

What a stupid AIR problem to have

Lately I’ve become very fond of the expression “This is a stupid problem to have”, the other night I got to use it in relation to AIR.

I’m working on a tool to view (hopefully) live survey data for when we have booths at conferences. We’ve come up with a simply iPhone survey, and want to be able to see the data in, more or less, real time.

I’ve been working on it, largely at the office, checking the code into SVN when I’m going to work from home. At some point in the last few days, I ended up with Flex Builder 3.0.2. Probably my best friend Adobe Updater.

The other night, I wrapped up at the office, checked in all my code, went home, fired up Flex Builder. When I went to test the app, ADL fired up, then immediately vanished. weird. Tried a few more times, still no joy. Restarted Flex builder, restarted my Macbook, nothing. Checked to make sure my Flex Builder was up to date, it was.

After finally giving up, I check back at work, app runs. Then I check to see if that Flex Builder was up to date. It wasn’t, 3.0.1, so I updated. Ran the app. ADL vanishedright after launching.

I decided to run the app in debug, see if that revealed anything. It did sorta. The message was just about useless, something to the effect of “The app crapped out before the debugger could connect”

I say just about useless, since it was enough to lead me to Cameron’s blog, where he mentioned an error he had gotten. It wasn’t the same error, but since I had just moved from 3.0.1 to 3.0.2 and AIR 1.5 had recently been released, I figured I’d check it out. Sure enough in my app descriptor it was set to 1.1 for AIR.

Now I certainly don’t need Adobe to hold my hand, but really, maybe just a few more descriptive error messages, shoot I’d take a message that gave me a few possible causes that I could run down on my own.

Why make things harder than necessary? What a frustrating waste of a night, just because Flex Builder and ADL couldn’t suggest I check my app descriptor.

Tags: Adobe Flex, AIR

Solution: iCal, gCal, and iPhone. A happy threesome

If you followed my previous post about wanting to trade my Kingdom for a way to sync my iPhone, iCal, and gCal, you know that the current situation for an iPhone owner, with a gCal account is pretty much W.E.A.K.

the blackberry definitely one ups the iPhone in this category.

While I’m not 100% happy with my current solution (Thanks commenter Toby), it’s the best solution I’ve come up with so far. My environment is convoluted for sure, but can’t be unique.

Toby pointed me to nuevaSync, which let’s you sync a gCal account through an exchange gateway, which you can then sync to the iPhone. Unfortunately the iPhone can only handle one exchange sync, no idea why.

So I’ve got 2 way Sync from gCal to the iPhone through nuevaSync. Then since I like using iCal when on my mac, or not connected, i use Google’s new calDav support to have 2 way communication between iCal and gCal.

ok mostly there. gCal is my hub, and iCal and the iPhone can talk to it, and get updates back and forth.

Unfortunately since I’m using my single exchange connection for nuevaSync, I had to disconnect from my EUI account. Solution, just as convoluted.

I connected my iPhone directly to the mail server via IMAP, and have entourage (blech) syncing to iCal in an Entourage, which then, mostly, sometimes, will make it up to the cloud that is MobileMe.

I can only imagine what kind of trouble I’d have if I was trying to sync contacts across all these services.

So there we have it. A mostly good solution, to a really stupid problem to have. Thanks Apple, this kind of stuff reinforces why RIM is the business choice still.

Tags: Google, iPhone, Mac

My Kingdom for a calendaring solution!!

I can’t be the only person in this situation.

I’ve got an iPhone, googleCalendar, and iCal/MobileMe.ANd a headache the size of Denver, maybe Los Angeles. The easy solution between iCal and gCal, is easy now that gCal supports calDav. However mobileMe doesn’t sync calDav calendars, so my iPhone has no calendars.

I’ve been using busySync, but that requires me to run it on a machine, which is ok, but then the failure point is that machine, and if I’m traveling with a different machine, well unless I leave it running, no sync-y. That’s a no go.

I found an Applescript, that comes pretty close. It takes my calDav calendar and copies it to “John Wilker iPhone”. Two problems; 1. it doesn’t sync recurring events, and, 2. it doesn’t allow me to add events to my iPhone cal, to be copied back, it’s a one way deal. So that’s kinda whack. But that could be livable.
I won’t even go into Entourage (EffectiveUI’s calendaring). I’m resigned to manually copying my work appts over. So Be it.

So what’s everyone else doing? Surely I can’t be alone! What’s everyone using to make gCal and an iPhone talk? Why does it suck so bad!?

Help me please!

Tags: iCal, iPhone

iPhone app - get your music on! Ocarina

I probably played a total of 6 hours of any Legend of Zelda game, evar. But Ocarina for the iPhone is damn fun! Fun isn’t really the right word, since Ocarina isn’t a game, it’s a social music…. experiment? App? Experience?

You’ll just have to try it out.

The app has two modes. musical instrument mode (play the Ocarina) and listen mode, (listen to others play their Ocarina).

Both modes are absolutely incredible. In make music mode, you blow into the mic of your iPhone, you hear the music out the speaker. The UI is 4 buttuns, pressing any combination of them, is the same as covering the holes on a flute.

The music is rather eerie, to me at least, almost like a durge, but also kinda mesmorizing, I could probably just sit it on my desk an listen while I work.

The visual representation of listening to the music is simply awesome. Rather than just a stic indicator of where the person you’re listening to is, you actually ’see’ their music. These cool green rings, and blue spirals, leave the location of the person playing, and shoot off past you into space.

Don’t like what the person is playing, jump to another person.

What amazes me, is that this is one of those apps that you think, “How many people will be using it, when i want to listen?” thinking there’ll be one dot at

any given time. That couldn’t be farther from the reality, I fired it up right before writing this post to screen shot it, and just look at how many people were playing their Ocarina on a Sunday around noon MST.  Each dot is an Ocarina being played, truly a world symphony.

Apps like Ocarina really reveal the social power of the iPhone. Sure we can calculate our split of the bill at a dinner party, we can tweet, we can manage our netflix queue, etc, but how cool is it that we can make AND share music with no infrastructure requirements beyond the internet. Hearing the music someone on the opposite side of the planet is making, while sitting at their desk or on their couch.

I don’t know who Pacman186 is, but their music was nice, and I enjoyed being able to listen.

Tags: Apple, iPhone