techNOcool

Google Maps for Mobile has a new feature, My Location, in beta. I can't get this for the iPhone yet, but have read that it's coming. It uses the GPS on your phone to find your location, or, for those of us with phones that don't have GPS it shows your general vicinity based on the cell tower(s) you are connecting to.

I can definitely think of times I could have used this. Looking for a restaurant nearby, like in the video below, is one obvious example. Figuring out how to drive from where you are to where you want to be is another, but an approximate location for a starting point might work better in some situations than others.

Maybe those of you with smart phones that let you install applications will give this a try and let those of us who have to wait for Apple's blessing know how it goes.

Posted by Susan Fenton at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm trying something new, not writing a paper when I post. My Ipod battery lately has been good for about 15 seconds of power, so time for a new one, IPod that is, not the battery, where's the fun in that, plus I needed to buy myself a Christmas gift...

Near as I can tell this thing is an Iphone without the phone, I went with the 8 GB version because I'm cheap. First thing I do is bring it home and it starts to auto sync the 25 GB of music and video I keep in my Itunes folder. I finally found the "Don't think for me" checkbox and got that stopped. I've been spending the last few hours getting my playlists and such recreated off of the old IPod (why didn't I back them up!!!) so far here's the positive's and negatives as I see them:

Positives:

1. CoverFlow, for some reason I'm entranced by this, my old Nano didn't have it, and I'm playing with this like a kid with a new christmas toy.

2. WiFi, I connected to my home network and downloaded a song via the IPod just because I could. Also browsed the web. My phone can do it, but-I can't believe I'm going to say this-Safari does a better job with the zoom capabilities once you figure out the finger jives.

3. Calendar and Contacts, While not useful to me since my phone already sync's wirelessly with them, you can sync with Outlook and I assume other clients via a wired connection.

4. Screen Cleaner, good thing they give you one, after about 3 touches fingerprints were everywhere

5. Battery Life, (Stay Tuned)

6. Glass Screen, (Stay Tuned)

Negatives:

1. Size, It's the same size as the Iphone, which is to say about the same size as a Q or a Palm Treo, pick a smartphone, they're all about the same size. That being said I could have bought a Nano which is nowhere near this size.

2. Weight, It does seem to weigh a ton, but at 4 oz. I don't think it will break my arm.

3. Software, Plug it into my computer, first thing it tells me is you need to update Itunes, ok, no big deal there. After that, oh, by the way, you need to update the IPod's software from v. 1.1.1 to v. 1.1.2. Only this particular near incremental version update is 160 MB (2% of the storage space)!!! No big deal, I have broadband, except that it gets to that 160 MB size and keeps going. Last I looked ITunes had downloaded 350 MB out of 160??? I may let it run all weekend and see how high it goes. This thing hasn't been out long enough to justify 160MB of updates, and if it's bad enough to need 160 MB of updates shouldn't the update software actually work? C'mon Apple give me a link to just download it manually and install it to my IPod, I don't need to use ITunes, which obviously doesn't work (550MB and counting)

UPDATE!!! I restarted the download and it stopped when it should have, then gave me a nice error: "The Ipod cannot be read (-50)" That's what I really wanted to see.

4. Screen Cleaner, (see above positives)

5. Battery Life, Apple says 22 hours of music playback, I may be one of the few people that can actually put that number to the test. (Stay Tuned)

6. Headphones, This is a minor gripe since replacements are cheap, but the new ear buds have to be the most uncomfortable things I've ever worn, I've already swiped the ones from my Nano.

7. Glass Screen, I tend to put my IPod into chest waders with keys while fishing, or into my pocket with keys, or just throw keys on top of it. Will the screen hold up? (Stay Tuned)

8. Fixed storage, I'm torn on this one. For one there is no way to expand the memory with SD or Mini SD flash cards. On the other hand it does have 8GB or 16 GB of storage. My phone will play music, and uses Mini SD cards to basically make the storage limit infinite, but I still bought an IPod. That said it would be nice if you could plug in a pre-made playlist via an SD flash card, or shove a card in and expand your memory so you could fit all of your Seinfeld and DMB bootlegs on all at once

Posted by Brian Pelino at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

While Jason and James duke it out over iGoogle vs Flock, I've been experimenting with portable apps on a thumb drive lately. I like this approach better than iGoogle because of privacy concerns and better than Flock because of portability.

There seem to be a couple of ways to go with the portable apps - U3 enabled, which require a U3 flash drive, and the open source portable apps from portableapps.com which install on any flash drive. Some apps, like Firefox and Thunderbird, are even available both ways. So things can get confusing and/or messy fast.

But with 2 GB U3 flash drives easily available for $20 or less, I've been having fun sorting through this mess and setting up my thumb drive with all my favorite apps. Especially now that I'm travelling without my laptop more, it's nice to know that I can have access to email and such on public computers without leaving sensitive information behind.

But wait - there's more! After setting up portable apps for windows I started wondering "What about macs?" What if I'm at an Apple Store and want to use iChat? How can I do this without having to go through an account set up and without leaving a trace on the host machine? Well, it turns out there are a number of portable apps for the Mac, too. And that someone has created portable versions of Apple apps including Safari, Mail and iChat - programs that should be on any mac - that use the application on the host machine but settings files on the flash drive. Unfortunately these aren't free, but for 99 cents a piece I think they're worth checking out.

I'll let you know how it goes.

UPDATE 12/3/07: I bought and installed the iChat and Safari portable apps for the mac. These use the application on the host machine but replace the settings files on the host machine with aliases to settings files on the thumb drive. When the app closes, it puts everything back the way it started.

My experience with these apps has been mixed. I went through a very frustrating period with the iChat app, where it worked on some machines but not others - or on some accounts on one machine, but not others. Eventually I figured out that if a ~/Library/Logs folder had never been created (because no app had ever crashed under that account, for instance), iChat would not open. The problem was solved by manually creating the Logs folder. But I shouldn't need to do that - the software shouldn't choke in this situation but should instead create the Logs folder for me. Apart from that, all was cool with iChat.

Safari mostly works fine, but setting the home page is a mystery to me. When I launched my portable Safari and set the home page, I found that the home page of Safari on the host machine got changed. And the next time I launched portable Safari on a different machine, my home page setting was gone. If anyone has any idea where Safari stores information about a user's home page (and it IS a user setting), I'd be very interested in hearing about it.

Posted by Susan Fenton at 1:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night I download a new web browser Flock that makes it easy to subscribe to one's various social sites and services.

I first heard about Flock a year ago and thought wow that's a nice idea. After playing with it for a short time I decided that it was just that a nice idea.

Well folks this time it is a nice tool that does a good job of connecting your online life. The one spot were it seems to fall short is that all of the connections are managed locally on the computer. What would be the bees knees and make flock truly a social browser would be to have your profile travel with you as you open flock on the various computers you use.

Posted by James Fadden at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It has been a while since we have posted to this blog and the best way to get over the hump is to post something. Jason emailed me this wired story today about a Linux PC that will sell for $200 dollars at Wal-mart.

Beside the link the message only had "I know the implications here, but $200..."

After reading the article I had the same feeling. How can I not go and pick up one of these things just to play with? Sure there are implications of what would I actually do with it but still it is only $200. Getting the chance to kick the tires of something like this is enticing. It makes me wonder if Linux is becoming ready for a less sophisticated technology user out-of-the-box how long is it before organizations large and small start to take a longer look at open-sources desktop computing in the same way many are starting to look at enterprise level solutions.

(Via - $200 Ubuntu Linux PC Now Available at Wal-Mart | Gadget Lab from Wired.com)

Posted by James Fadden at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)