When i saw that GorillaPod had an iphone app, and a camera app no less I was intrigued.

The iPhone camera is kind the suck. At least for anything more than, “Oh hey a unicorn in the middle of the street, lemme snap a pick for twitter”

Try taking an “arms length” picture and good luck tapping the right place on the screen.

Enter GorillaCam (iTunes Link)!

It’s pretty simple, it replaces the existing camera app on your phone. It replaces it with WAY more functionality.

Pros

Timer: Awesome. Especially when doing arms length photos, etc.

Time Lapse. Less impressive only because of the apps slowness (see the ‘cons’ section). The lapses would be 30 seconds or more apart. not sure what benefit that gives.

3 Shot burst is nice.

Bubble level: blah whatever. I don’t need perfectly level photos from my iPhone.

Grid: Kinda cool, just for lining things up in the shot, I like it, but I think i like for some useless nerdcore reason.

Press Anywhere: Worth the price of the app just for this. Again, when taking those arms length-eiffel tower-in the background shots, having to tap the exact spot on the screen where the shutter button appears is almost impossible. It’s led to plenty of pics of me and Nicole where we’re laughing at the silliness of the problem or making a weird face thinking I hit the button, when I didn’t, but then did hit the button when I wasn’t planning to.

Being able to just tap anywhere on the screen is AWESOME. It’s made the app really useful.

Cons.

The biggest, and only real downside to the app is the saving. I don’t know if it’s the app, the camera API, or what, but it’s slow. Almost unusably slow. It’s fine if you’re just taking a one off photo of something, but if you’re trying to snap pics at an event or something where you’d like to take more than 2 pictures a minute, you’re out of luck. Hopefully it changes in a future release. Right now it’s not a full replacement of the Camera app. Close though.

In the end, if you’re looking for more features from your iPhone camera, this app is great. It offers a ton of cool (and some less cool) features that just make taking pictures easier/better. If you can live with the delay, it’s worth it, no question.

Oh and I’m on a 3GS, so it’s not (I assume) a hardware issue.

Wil Wheaton said it best “It’s only a matter of time before the TSA decides that passengers simply will not be permitted to board airplanes. You know, for safety.”

What strikes me the most is that since 9/11 the TSA has put us (You know, the American People, voters, etc) through all sorts of shit. Making us miss our flights, being rude to us in line, destroying personal property, and more all without any recourse on our part. How many complaint boxes have you ever seen? I’ve only ever seen one in New Orleans. Ever tried to complain on site and been told “Talk to the TSA it’s not our fault.” Which TSA? The guy behind the x-ray machine, the three patting people down? There’s no clear “I’m in charge complain to me” person anywhere. I’m sure trying to find said person would result in:

1. you missing your flight.

2. you being permenantly on the shit list

3. (and almost guaranteed) you not getting an answer or speaking to anyone who can give you an answer. :(

The TSA is making air travel a miserable experience, and in the end, not stopping the guy with explosives in his underpants.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Transparency? Nope, not in the TSA, DHS dictionary. Accountability? Nope, not in the book either.

As a fairly frequent air traveler (about 20k miles a year) I don’t feel any safer about air travel now, than I did on 9/10. It seems most terrorist attempts since 9/11 have been thwarted by other travelers.

From http://stat-computing.org/dataexpo/2009/posters/

I’d feel more safe if I knew there was an Air Marshal, on every flight. Since there are so many fewer flights (Remember when missing a flight was ok, because there was another in an hour or so. Sidenote: Data to the right shows fewer delays post 9/11. Think that’s efficiency, or just fewer flights?) than the pre 9/11 days, it shouldn’t be a budget buster to have Air Marshals, if we ditch some of the extraneous costs we’ve added to the pre flight portion of travel.

Of course in light of the recent incidents, the TSA is knee jerking and banning things that (as far as I can tell) have yet to ever actually be used in terrorist attempts. I’ve heard no reports of laptops, iPod, PSPs, etc being in any way used by terrorists. Box cutters, yes. ACME shoe bombs, yes. underwear bombs, sadly yes.

There’s plenty of reading on the subject,

Will TSA rules affect inflight gaming?

TSA Directive begs serious questions (I completely agree with the questions by the way. Especially “How far will the TSA go?” If you say as far as it has to to protect us. News flash it was a passenger who stopped underwear bomb guy, and if I recall, the same for ACME shoe bomb idiot. We’re protecting ourselves better than the TSA is)

Next time you fly prepare to be patted down

For the next 360|Flex in San Jose, I’m planning (unless things change) in looking at Amtrak. It’s (Another blog post) more expensive, by almost 100%, but at this point I’m feeling like as a consumer my only recourse is to punish (stronger term than I’d prefer) the airlines, since I can’t punish or even speak to the TSA. Hopefully more people will follow suit and the airlines will put pressure on the TSA/administration because they’re the ones suffering the TSA’s ridiculous policies (except United who reaps $5 per traveler the TSA screws over)

Why? Beats me. I didn’t undergo any additional screening. The ticket agent simply followed the normal steps, then said something about entering my name or checking me off.

I’d love to hear the reason this (especially instituted around holiday travel time) new directive was created and what safety and security issue it attempts to solve.

Here’s how it impacted my travel.

I had to fly United, whom I hate, because no other airline from DIA had direct flights to New Orleans. Should I ever have to fly to New Orleans again, I’ll suffer a stop over in New York or Africa if need be.

United in their ongoing attempts at seeing how hard they can screw their customers, charges for every single piece of luggage. No first bag free. Every bag, $20 or $15 if you check in online.

Well I couldn’t check in online.

So I wait in the check in line and get to the counter. I ask if I can at least get the $15 bag fee, since after all I  didn’t want to be speaking to the ticket agent, I didn’t want to wait in the line with the other schmoe’s who either got “picked” or were too lame to print their passes at home.

“Sorry, it’s $20 at the counter. I can’t help you. It’s the TSA’s rule, not ours, so you’re SOL” (She didn’t say SOL, but she also didn’t seem remotely inclined to help. She did say ’sorry’)

So basically the TSA is Colluding with United to rip customers off of $5 a bag, and cause problems with people’s travel plans.

She hands me my boarding pass, my receipt for my $20 luggage, and my luggage tag sticker, all loose. No nice little sleave. Really?

No only am I paying $5 extra for my luggage, I’m having to wait in line for no clear reason, but I don’t even get the $.15 sleeve that makes my life easier having all my papers in one place not loose slipping out of my hand… come to think of it, I don’t even know what happened to my luggage tag, glad they didn’t lose my bags.

I’m seriously thinking, that AMTRAK is looking better and better. I can work from the train with my MIFI, so I wouldn’t lose productive time, I can make calls, etc. And the TSA wouldn’t be ruining the experience every chance they get.

I’m all for safety, but 1. I don’t feel safer now than I did before 9/11, and sadly in reality air terrorism wasn’t rampant before 9/11, so I find it hard to believe, they (the TSA) are thwarting attempts left and right, daily at every airport, on every flight.

Like most things the government starts to get involved in, air travel is getting worse and worse

Thankfully, what I assumed was just a natural state of affairs, I had no control over, turns out to be a completely manageable process, thanks to Network Location. I would have never known this app existed, if not for twitter. Someone (I don’t recall who) pointed out the One Finger Discount site, and after looking over the offerings, I was clicking purchase.

It was especially good timing. I was leaving for a trip to San Jose, so I’d get to test the app out. Set up is really straight forward. You define your locations (Home, Office, Travel, Starbucks, etc)

The things that get me, are printers, Time Machine, etc. When I’m traveling for work, I almost always have my portable HP printer, so I’d like to not have to remember to change printers.

I hate having Time Machine try to run when I’m not home, sitting there spinning wasting cycles, and bandwidth looking for the drobo that isn’t there.

Defining my locations, solves those.

The nice thing is, while yeah it will pop up a nice little widget asking me where I am, it can also auto sense, and take action, based on geolocation, and Access Point name. So now, whenever I’m at home and connect to my home AP, it’ll mount the drives I want mounted all the time.

This past weekend it’s been so nice, knowing my Default printer was what it needed to be.

If you’re a road warrior, that has to constantly fuss with settings between location, this app is for you!!

I was having a beer with the LoDo Conversations guys after being a guest on the show, and was talking to Corey Gilmore about iPhones, and we got on the subject of Navigation. Corey had tried a great many of them, proclaiming the all sucked.

We looked at two of them at the bar, I agree, they looked pretty lame. One couldn’t even figure out we were in CO, and when Corey type Denver, it only offered up Denverton.

I’m all for the iPhone doing a lot of things, but navigation ain’t one. Google maps is just fine for a quicky, “Where the hell am I?” type need. If I’m taking a long trip i use my dedicated GPS Nav. It’s UI is specific to it’s purpose, and so is the hardware. No additional brackets needed, no cel service needed to help get a fix, etc. Turn it on, it works. If it runs out of batteries I can still make calls on my phone.

While it’s telling me where to go, I can also make and receive calls on my phone, go figure.

The Kindle (I’ve talked about this before) is another great unitasker. Any eBook reader is. I don’t want to read on my iPhone, or my laptop. Why? because I want to read a book that’s dedicated to doing one thing really well, making my reading experience great. Oh and I want it to be good for more than 4 hours on a charge, and when I’m done reading, I want to be able to pick up my phone and have it not be dead.

I also don’t want to surf the net on my eReader. The typical problem with the jack of all trades device, is that it does lots of things, ‘ok’ but nothing exceptionally. the Kindle (And I’d guess all or most other eReaders) let you read books exceptionally.

The Unitasker will always have a place in society and especially in technology.

It was for our friend’s wedding.

Lucky for us it was also Oktoberfest in Vail, w00t! We actually didn’t endulge since we had to be coherent for the ceremony. We did buy new light jackets which was good :)

The wedding was awesome, despite the rain gods choosing to open up right as she started to walk down the aisle (Outdoor wedding of course), but we all ran inside, hung out for about 10 minutes, then did a nice take two. Worked out perfectly.

We bummed around Vail Sunday morning before leaving. Actually just around Lionshead, which was a short walk from where we were staying.

Overall I’d love to visit Vail again, probably next summer since the skiing is a bit outside my skill level. Next time we’ll bring our bikes, I’d love to bike down some of the runs.

It was nice to get a chance for Nicole and to just hang out. Between conferences and other obligations/events around town, it’s been a while since we’ve just hung out together. Doing that in Vail, well that’s just icing.

I originally looked for a broadband hotspot I could use my extra AT&T SIM with, but alas, the only option I found was for sale overseas and shipping, and conversion to Euro’s well put it out of my price range (Still looking for a device to use that SIM in, not really a netbook guy, so don’t offer that up :D ). Luckily our sprint cards were upgradeable. Well one was. the other was free to cancel so we did.

Now we share the mifi and whomever travels gets it, and when we travel together, well we can both use it.

It’s an awesome little device. We used it this past weekend in Vail. The hotel had wifi, but hell if we could find it. Every SSID was locked, and no one provided us the password. Mifi to the rescue, power it up and bam, surfing along just fine.

As much as I’m a fan of public wifi it’s just not reliable. Either the coffee shop router is unplugged, maxed out, or “I don’t think it works” or worse, NOT FREE. So I don’t bother. Sit down, fire it up. iPhone can use it, laptop can use it, hell someone I’m sitting with can too. I don’t have to worry about the guy next to me streaming pandora, or the girl in the corner using Skype to conference call, etc. I have my own 3G connection. Sure it might not be as fast as a hardline, but it’s always available, and ready.

Pros:

• Super portable
• Doesn’t waste a precious (On a unibody Mac) USB port
• Doesn’t require stupid drivers or apps
• easy to set up and connect to
• did I mention super portable?
• The controls interface (web site) is really easy to use
• You can run it on AC power too, so if the battery dies you’re not SOL. I haven’t tried running it off, USB power yet.
• Biggest Pro. I’m AT&T Proof. (See below)

Cons:

• Not sure if it’s Mifi or what, but sometimes the iPhone and Macbook, don’t immediately see the AP, even when it’s on and ready to go. They seem to forget that they’ve used that AP before. Possibly an IP thing? Kinda lame sometimes to have to re connect.
• Battery life. 4 hours with 1 isn’t so bad, but it goes down with each connection

AT&T Proof?

It’s common, if anecdotal knowledge in downtown Denver that during Rockies home games, the AT&T network pretty much collapses (sad, but true). You’ll have full bars, and can’t complete a call or open an email. I’ve taken to carrying the Mifi in my pocket or backback (as the case may be) and having it on the whole time and letting that serve up data for my iPhone. Voice is a little trickier, but Skype solves that issue, if I REALLY need to make a call right then. Sad, but hey, it’s a nice back up plan, since AT&T can’t be relied on.

I flew into Portland, and hung out with my sister for a few hours, then headed out to Long Beach WA (Just north of Astoria, home of the The Goonies) for the weekend.

Long Beach is one of those sleepy little beach towns, where money and motivation seem to not weigh as much on people’s souls. For better or worse, folks seem to move at their own pace, LOL.

As it happened it was also the Annual Kite Festival, and one of the nicer weekends for the festival in years (I’m told). The sun was out a lot, the breeze was just enough to lift kites, but not so gusty as to destroy them.

It’s cool to see so many kites just anchored and staying aloft all day.  So many interesting kites.

One day we drove down to Seaside (I think that was the town) to hang out. It’s a tourist trap for sure, but it was an beautiful day, sunny, warm when not in the shade. A great day for walking around.

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out around town, relaxing, eating REALLY REALLY fresh Salmon and of course Taco Time :) It’s fun to just kick back enjoy the beach weather and just hang out with my folks, and talk about whatever.

I didn’t bring a camera, but of course had my trusty iPhone 3GS, so you can take a look at the pics I took on Flickr or Facebook.

While I wish Long Beach had cellular service, I was giddy when I stumbled across a bar or two of EDGE, it was kinda nice to be a bit disconnected. My folks have broadband, so I was connected enough to record an episode of the Summer of Flash, and check mail and such, but only by ethernet cable. My Kindle was able to connect so I still got my morning Kindlefeeder delivery (it’s like a morning newspaper, but only what I want to read).

All in all I had a great time and came home ready to tackle whatever comes my way!

InsideMobile is a 2 day event, starting Sunday July 26th with a full day of hands on training in Palm Pre/Mojo SDK, PhoneGap, and even mobile app design.

Monday is 4 rooms with 18 sessions total talking mobile development from metrics gathering, to business opportunities to Augmented Reality (I really can’t wait for this! We’ve got two sessions back to back)

I can’t wait! San Jose is fun! Our speaker line up is folks I know and love to see, and abunch of new folks I’ve never met and can’t wait to have a beer with!

If you know Tom and I at all, you know this event is going to be big, not  to be all ego, but we try our best, to make sure even events with less turn out are fun and engaging, this will be no different,

Go check it out, it’s gonna be a great event! If you need any incentive, ‘johnismyfriend’ will save you 40% on registration, which of course being a Tom and I event, is already pretty damn reasonable!

Airports are like movies and concerts in that they encourage asshole behavior hand “It’s all about me” thinking. I don’t know why, and not everyone does it, but it seems easier to get to that point when flying.

I typically check my bags. Either I’m meeting Tom and my flight is first anyway so I have time, or I’m traveling long enough that I need my big bag. 9 out of 10 times, even when I’m flying with my smaller luggage (that can fit overhead) I check it.

I understand a lot of people are in a hurry (whether they really are or just think they are) and don’t want to wait for luggage, that’s ok. But those same people seem to usually be the ones who can’t or won’t grasp the “must fit in overhead, and only 1 allowed” rule. I’ve seen people with 2 rolly bags, 1 rolly bag, and a huge duffel, etc. there’s many variations.

What sucks is that, a big bag will fit sideways if you’re the first person on the plane, and as usually happens, the people with the big bags make sure they’re on early and can steal an overhead for their oversized bag(s).

I guess congress is stepping in on behalf of the non-asshole-air travelers. I read about it on the Tom Bihn (awesome bags) blog.

I agree with the Time’s Writer, when he says that pushing bag size checking to the TSA zone, means slower security checks. Yeah, as if we need slower security. My only recommendation to make that not be a huge time suck, make the apperture of the xray machine the size of the “allowed” bag. if it can’t fit in the machine, it won’t fit in a bin. This will at least solve 1 dimension of the “steamer trunk” problem.

I’m torn. I don’t like laws that enforce common sense or non asshole behavior, but having been forced to watch the plane I’m on leave late because of the baggage wrangling that is required, I certainly wouldn’t mind a “gold standard” in luggage.

Maybe instead of making luggage size a TSA problem, the luggage industry should step up and make bags that are the right size, and clearly the wrong size, so there’s less guesswork, “will this fit” going on.

OR, we could all stop being self centered retards. I know, who am I kidding