johnwilker.com

iApp Review – Popular Mechanics Does it Right

I’m a sucker for giving publishing a chance. I don’t know why, they fail more often than not. Just look at Wired (iTunes Link), and Men’s Health (iTunes Link).

Popular Mechanics (iTunes Link), might be the exception for many reasons.

1. They priced the app right. 1.99. It’s a beta, so I hope they see that the price is a huge deal and keep it at something reasonable, and below the dead tree edition.

2. They don’t go rich media crazy like Wired did. There’s plenty of pages of simple text for reading. Maybe a nice transition of a graphic element sliding in slightly after the page transition finishes, but every page isn’t a multimedia orgy.

3. They started slow. Both Men’s Health and Wired, dove right in with high priced, “billed as complete” as far as I know offerings. It’s nice to see Pop. Mech. admit they’re testing the waters.

iApp Review – Landformer

I met Owen Goss at the first 360|iDev I organized, and instantly liked him. If nothing else he takes my polar bear jokes in stride, that’s pretty big :) He’s an awesome developer, great speaker, and his latest game LandFormer (iTunes Link) is an awesome time suck! That’s a good thing :) Owen’s not new [...]

iPad….. nice but not magical, yet (my Review)

So I’m writing this on my iPad. I’m not feeling the magic. (update, i had to save it so I could edit on my Macbook, else this post take would’ve taken 40 years to write)

Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty, but not useful. Yet.

And before you decide I’m just an Apple hater, let me lay out my credentials for those that don’t know me.

I own:

Unibody Macbook, 2 Minis, 3 iPods (including an iPod Photo), 2 iPhones, 1 iPad, 2 Airport Express, 1 Airport Extreme, my wife has a white plastic macbook.

I’ve Previously owned:

a Macbook Pro, Newton 110, Powerbook 510, Performa. I think it’s safe to say my fanboi-ness is secure.

That out of the way.

The iPad is a very pretty device, and if your life (as some do) revolves around reading websites, watching videos, and …. well that’s it. Checking email I suppose too. Then the iPad is the perfect toy for you (albeit, for those simple tasks, the price IMO is a bit steep).

I tried. I didn’t write this review the night i got my iPad, I didn’t write it Sunday night, I waited and actually tried to do things I’d normally grab my Macbook for.

First I went up on my deck, to get some sun, and enjoy working outside. Since I was just gonna reply to a few emails, I grabbed the iPad.

iApp Review – Procamera

I got an email a few weeks ago, asking me to take a look at ProCamera. Sure why not, I’d love something that was better than the built in app, and GorillaCam came just shy of the mark for me. ProCamera (iTunes Link) might be it. Procamera has an impressive list of features. Steady Cam [...]

iApp Review – GorillaPod gorillacam

I love my GorillaPod. So much so I bought Nicole an additional one. I used it during RIAdventure 2009 to hold my Flip cam while recording sessions, and we’ve used it at the end of a trekking pole when hiking.

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

Follow up to Netflix on my PS3

I wanted to post a quick followup to my previous post about streaming Netflix on my PS3 via a disc they send out.

It’s as shitty as I said.

My free disc arrived and I figured, you know what, I’ll try it out, maybe I’m wrong, it happens from time to time. I wasn’t.

The interface is craptastic. You load the disc like any other, it spends some time connecting, then it brings up a nice little screen with an alpha numeric code, that I have to plug into my Netflix account. Too bad my laptop was upstairs doing something so I had to commit it to memory. Lame. I know it would have been extra work on Netflix’s part, but it would have been an awesome gesture if they could have pre-registered the disc they sent to my account “Welcome John, here’s your instant Queue”

The browsing is about as simple as it could be, a linear horizontal display of movies. You have to just scroll left and right through the list. That’s it.

No bells, no whistles.

One more tool in my Travel toolkit – Network Location

One of the things I hate about travel (And I really do love traveling) is my laptop doing things I don’t want it to do, because it doesn’t know we’re traveling.

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.

johnwilker.com – My Thoughts on V

Be warned if you haven’t watched it yet, stop reading.

I loved V as a kid, it was a great show, good message. Sure it was campy and Jane Badler was a psycho bitch of a bad guy, but it was a great show and set of Miniseries/TV Movies.

I watched the new V the other night and while I think it’s got promise, and I admit, it’s a “re-imagining” it’s got some work to do to measure up to the original.

Sure networks today, are run by retards, who give a show 1 episode to hit #1 and if it doesn’t they cancel so they can air more Dancing|singing|boxing|dieting with the stars, so I hope V get’s a chance to work out the kinks.

iApp Review Simon the Sorcerer 2

The makers of Simon the Sorcerer 2 asked me to give the game a shot. I did.

I’m not a big Role player, so probly not the best person for this game. I did enjoy it a bit, but as a ‘casual gamer’ it wouldn’t be for me.

The game play is fun, but a bit confusing, there’s cross hairs, icons, double tapping, etc.

Sprint Mifi Review

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.

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