Oh Seattle: The Haiku

In some ways, I'm still learning how to be a Seattlite. There are some things that seem so quintessentially Seattle, and the haiku is one of them. I never wrote a haiku outside of a classroom. No one has ever read one to me outside of a classroom either... until I moved to Seattle. Birthdays, anniversaries, fridays, snacks, winning games and willing ears all earn a haiku. I would write one, but, as I said, I'm still learning to be a Seattlite. That said, it's wonderfully quirky and literate... kind of like the city.

Geotagging photos with any digital camera and your iPhone

The new iPhoto has some really cool features. One of my favorites is the ability to sort photos by location. This is particularly useful (and entertaining) when you travel to the same places over and over again. Sorting by location allows you to see how much places have changed (or stayed the same, depending upon where you go).

I have a nice point and shoot (a Sony Cybershot) and my partner has a Canon Digital Rebel XT. Neither of these cameras have a GPS unit built into them and we don't really want to purchase new cameras to get geotags automatically added to our photos. We looked into getting an external device, like the Sony GPS-CS1KASP GPS Unit , but we are Mac users and the process, while pretty seamless I hear for Windows users, takes a lot more tweaking on a Mac.

One thing we do have are iPhones-- not second generation ones with GPS chips built-in, but iPhones nonetheless. I decided to find out if I could use a geotagging app on my phone to help me add location information to photos using cell tower triangulation. I eventually did find a good solution in Saltpepper's GeoTag.

The process of data collection is pretty simple and flexible. You can either set your camera's clock to match your iPhone's and then take pictures while running GeoTag. The app can keep your iPhone from sleeping, which will allow constant data collection, but which will also reduce your phone's battery life. Knowing that this would be a problem, the developer included a file name-based data collection mode in which you enter in the file name (IMG, DSCN, etc.) and the number of the next shot you will take into the app's settings. Every time you take a picture, just press the "collect" button in the app and it will store the location information along with the name of the image file it will eventually sync to. This allows you to put your phone to sleep when you are not actively taking pictures and recording data. This is the option that I chose and I found it to work well. Cell phone tower triangulation isn't perfect, but I am also only looking for a general location (i.e. Seattle, Pittsburgh, New York, etc.). GeoTag is really meant for second generation iPhones and I imagine that you would get much more precise results with the use of a GPS chip.

Syncing your location data with your photos isn't seamless, but it isn't bad. Using a free app that you download from the Saltpepper website, you can transfer the location data to the computer via your wireless network, then after transferring your pictures from your camera to a folder on your computer, open the images and associate the data. The desktop app is a little slow, so you must be patient and wait for your pictures to load. Once you feel confident that the location data is correctly associated with your photos, you can write the tags with the click of a button. The app will backup each file that it alters in case a problem occurs, although I have yet to experience one. You can then import your photos into iPhoto or upload them to a geotag-aware web service.

Overall the process was simple and well worth the $3.99 that the app cost. If the developers find a way to speed up the desktop app, they could be on to a killer app. Check out GeoTag at http://www.saltpepper.net/geotag/

Alternatively, you can do this for free by taking a picture with your iPhone in each location, importing it along with your digital camera's photos, and copying the location data to all of the photos in the import. Either way, you get to enjoy geotags in your photo albums.

First Impressions: Gyminee

I've been thinking about getting into better shape for a while now. I'm not in horrible shape to begin with, but since I really like sweets, I know that I may need some help organizing and encouraging myself through the process. Enter the Gyminee website. Gyminee allows users to set weight loss and fitness goals and enter nutrition and workout details to help guide users to success. There is also a social aspect to the site which allows users to join groups and encourage each other.

On the nutrition side of the site, Gyminee is excellent. Gyminee has a vast library of foods that is relatively, in my limited experience, free of duplication. Adding foods to the database and to the list of things that you ate today is very easy. I also really like the clean interface and the ability to save certain foods to a favorites list.

The fitness side is a little less flexible. You have to create "workouts" from sets of exercises from their library. The library of exercises are pretty small. It is difficult to find what you need if you do anything too creative in the gym. If you try to avoid doing the same routine over and over again, you will have to create a new "workout" every time you go to the gym and tracking progress becomes difficult.

There is a fee-based "pro" option on the site that enables a number of advanced features, but those would not solve my problems with the fitness tracking system. Because of its limitations, I'm sticking to using the nutrition side of the site only. I'll report back on my progress later to see if the site helped me along.

Why do people walk backwards?

I'm wondering why people walk slowly backwards on the sidewalk, usually talking on the phone or looking at the sky. The number of people who back into me on the sidewalk during my walks to and from work each day is astounding. I suppose I should be glad that they don't bike or drive backwards. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here to rant!

Kindle DX: more bigger better?

Yesterday, Amazon introduced the Kindle DX. I have not yet purchased a Kindle, but I've had my eye on it for a while now. I own a lot of books and I really like the idea of making my entire library more portable. Having moved into a new apartment recently, I cannot say that I will miss carrying the boxes of books up and down flights of stairs. However, both the new Kindle and the Amazon Kindle store are not yet where I need them to be yet for me to justify a purchase. Amazon is adding thousands of books everyday, however, so that time may be coming soon.

According to yesterday's announcement, there is a lot to love about the new Kindle DX. It has a bigger screen, more storage, more functionality for reading pdfs natively and an accelerometer to allow you to switch from portrait to landscape. It has more, more, more! But, at the same time, it is the same old Kindle attached to the same old store. Although among yesterday's announcements was the introduction of textbooks for the Kindle, the availability of academic monographs in the humanities is minimal. It is difficult to get a history book that is written for an academic audience. This makes sense for Amazon, because the market is small. Unfortunately, it makes the Kindle less useful to me and to others interested in the Humanities. I have a feeling that this will be remedied very quickly however, as Amazon is partnering with higher educational institutions.

Then there's the price. $489! For me this is a lot to spend, but I would probably not only make that back on book purchases but on the reduced cost and effort of my next move. Seriously! It was an awful experience! What do you think?

Disappearing app icons on the iPhone

Recently, I noticed that icons are disappearing from my iPhone. I went to start my favorite streaming radio app, Wunder Radio, and it was gone. I thought maybe I had deleted it by accident, so I went into the app store to get another copy. It claimed that the app was installed already. Am I alone in this?

UPDATE: I had 9 full pages of apps on my iPhone (I know, I know)! I set some not to sync to the phone and my missing apps returned. User error! Gotta love it!

Just had an FMyLife moment

I'm at a conference, trying to learn ways to convince my org's leaders to adopt social media stratgies. The opening plenary speaker used my org as an example of what not to do. Networking will be exceedingly difficult now. :o(

Help the planet and your budget by keeping old gadgets

The site Last Year's Model is promoting the long-term use of gadgets. It is really smart for both environmental and budgetary reasons. If you buy good products to start with, you should be able to either continue using them or change them to serve new needs. Gina Trapani, the fearless leader of Smarterware, formerly of Lifehacker, still uses her XBox as a media center. I think that's great! I have the original AppleTV with Boxee and no plans to replace it. Gadgets with upgradable and expandable software/firmware are really great for this. Share your story at Last Year's Model.

Google Profiles and Search

Google has started to roll out something like the beginnings of a social network, except it is not yet social and not really a network (you can't "friend" anyone)! If you allow Google to display your full name on your profile (a setting that you can change in your profile settings, just to the left of your picture), your profile will show up if some searches for you. By including additional information about yourself in your Google profile, you can make it easier for those looking for you to learn more about you. Although this in itself is not a bad thing, I do not think I will be participating. Now that so many sites ask for personal information for use as security questions, I don't want to share information like where I was born, etc. with just anyone. Regardless, it is very interesting to see Google take steps towards getting social with searching.

EasyBloom - nice idea, but do I really need one?

I have a black thumb. I admit it. I didn't think that anything could help me, but there may be hope in the form of EasyBloom, but I'm on the fence as to whether it is worth it. It is an electronic device that looks like a plastic daisy. When placed in a pot next to a plant or where you plan to put one, it will monitor temperature, light, soil, and water conditions and let you know what plants can best live under those conditions and if you already have a plant there, if you are over or under watering it. The device can also help you determine why a plant is doing poorly. Once the EasyBloom has collected the data, you separate the "flower" and from the "stem" of the device, exposing a USB connector. You can then connect it to your Mac or PC to send the data to EasyBloom's online plant library for recommendations and information.

While this looks like an interesting device, it sells for approximately $60 US which seems like a lot for a sensor that you will use only occasionally. What do you think?

Virtual Console Wishlist - The Bard's Tale

I was very excited when Commodore 64 games started to appear in the US version of the Wii Shopping Channel. Some of my fondest gaming memories came from hours spent in front of the venerable C64. One of my favorite titles that I think would be interesting to remix for the Wii is The Bard's Tale. I loved the mechanics of it: controlling a party of adventurers in turn based battle and exploration. The story was rich yet not so complicated that it seemed cumbersome.

The challenge in this translation would be managing keyboard controls. I wish that wireless keyboards were a bigger part of console gaming. I love the idea of relaxing in my living room, playing classic computer games on my TV, which is exactly where I used to play them in the 1980s. Buying a wireless keyboard would not be an impediment to me enjoying games like the Bard's Tale, however, I do think that it represents a red flag for Nintendo and publishers working on providing the Wii with Virtual Console games.

Is the iPhone the new Apple TV?

I read a post on the iPhone Blog today about how an "iPhone HD" might be replacing the Apple TV. I certainly hope that this rumor dissipates into the ether for three main reasons.

First, I think it would be inconvenient. Either you have to keep a potentially clunky cable hookup near your television or you would have to purchase another dock. By having the iPhone docked to the TV, you would lose the ability to use it as a remote control, requiring some other device to be used for that purpose. Additionally, there would be further inconvenience in accessing your media. As it stands right now, I can watch a file copied to my iPhone while my partner either watches streamed or copied content on the AppleTV. If the iPhone replaces the AppleTV, it would make it harder to use files shared within a family and would require some design and engineering on Apple's part to handle situations when the phone is needed for a call, but the rest of the audience wants to continue watching a program.

Second, content updates would become difficult. My iMac and AppleTV sit at home, checking for new podcast episodes every hour or so. If my iPhone did the same thing, the battery would likely run out before the end of the day. Additionally, I would have to keep more of my library of podcasts on the phone than I do now.

Finally, it would involve not only Apple and its content providers in the policing of the device, as is the case currently with AppleTV, but also AT&T. I already have to tolerate service provider decision making when I use my cell phone. I don't want to have to deal with it in my living room. The maze of regulations from private entities is getting more and more convoluted.

Not only do I think replacing the AppleTV with a phone would be a bad move, I also think it is highly unlikely. There are so many problems that would come out of this, and Apple would have an even bigger bureaucratic nightmare to deal with if AT&T and other global cell phone carriers became involved your living room media center. At least for now, I think this is a rumor that we don't have to worry about.

First Impressions: The Hit List

I picked up The Hit List (THL) as part of the MacHeist bundle this year. As a long-time user of Remember the Milk (RTM), I thought that I would find it limiting. RTM is an online app and so I can reach it from anywhere I have access to the web. It also has an iPhone app, which is extremely handy, but requires a pro account which costs $25 per year. Over a few years of use, that can get very expensive. THL looked very attractive and easy to use, so I thought I would give it a try.

THL has an extremely clean interface. Other than the yellow lined "paper" background of the "Inbox", it is rather sleek. I appreciate that I can do most of the functions available in a Getting Things Done (GTD) system, but without all of the complexity exposed. One example is a recurring task. Instead of being confronted with a dialog box full of choices on how to configure the recurrence, you just type what it is and THL parses it. "Every monday, thursday and friday" works. So does "The 5th of every month". It is a really intelligent system.

This gets at the heart of why THL will be a great system. It is keyboard based. You can do anything from a relatively intuitive set of keyboard shortcuts. There is help if you need it as well, elegantly displayed on a pane at the bottom of the window. However, THL is not yet a great system, although it is good. It does not have a mobile application so you cannot sync your data to go. It also does not sync with any online GTD sites. The developers have indicated that they are working on an iPhone app, however I am not sure when to expect it, as they are still working on the Mac application. It also cannot add appointments to your iCal calendar. It can add tasks, but not "tickler" appointments, which are an important part of the some implementations of the GTD system.

THL, however, is a work in progress, and an impressive one. I am looking forward to seeing what the developers come up with next.

Making ProQuest newspaper scans full-text searchable

I love using ProQuest newspaper databases for my dissertation research, however one thing bothers me about them. Even though the documents are full-text searchable in their database, once you download a document, simple find commands or searches through Spotlight and Google Desktop fail to find anything except for the bibliographic information that ProQuest adds to the top of the document. If you open the document in Acrobat and attempt to make it full-text searchable by clicking on Document->OCR Text Recognition->Recognize Text using OCR... it will produce an error.

To solve this I created an Apple Automator script that takes the pdf, turns it into an image, and then turns it back into a pdf. You can then use Acrobat to make the text recognizable. You can get the script here.

Finance management with Mint.com is almost there

I know that a lot of people are nervous about sharing their financial logins with companies. There is no doubt that there is a risk in doing this. However, I really needed a way to keep my finances in order, as I am not the most organized when it comes to money matters. I really like using Mint.com, although it is missing two huge features that I would need before I made it my sole destination for personal finance management.

Currently, Mint shows transactions, allows you to create a budget and tracks it for you and compares your spending to other users anonymously by city. Mint makes money by offering users deals on financial products. The offers could potentially help users save some money,too, through signup bonuses, lower credit interest rates, and higher savings interest rates.

What I miss most in Mint is a way to project into the future. Quicken Online offers this, but there are problems with their service as well. The ability to input expected transactions essentially duplicates the functionality of a checkbook register. This is a critical feature for anyone who looks to keep their finances in order using a single online tool.

Additionally, I would like to see a bill calendar. Mint checks for the due dates for any loans and credit card accounts that you have registered. It will also remind you when a bill is due via text messages if you would like it to. What is lacking is the ability to see all of your due dates at one time and in one place. This is important for budgeting and planning.

Mint.com is not a finished product and it has been improving nicely over time. I look forward to what they come up with next.

Co-chel-la? Co-a-chella?

How do you pronounce Coachella, anyway? I've heard Co-chel-la and co-a-chel-la. Help me out, because this is really important. Okay, maybe not.

Is my TV haunted?!

I own a Philips 37-in LCD TV that randomly turns itself on, then immediately off again. The screen never displays anything, but the power light blinks on. When it happens, I can hear the click that happens when I purposefully turn the TV on. Occasionally, the ambilight in the back of the TV that provides colored backlighting to reduce eye strain turns on for a second as well. So far, I have not found a logical explanation. If it were IR signals from another apartment or building, wouldn't the TV just turn on? I upgraded the firmware in the hopes that the problem would go away, but it hasn't. It's creepy sitting in a quiet room alone reading and having the TV turn itself on and off. Have any ideas?

iPhone incognito: Turning Your iPhone Into A Squeezebox, Sort of...

Over the holiday break, I became interested in the Squeezebox Boom. I like to listen to music in the mornings while I am in bed and at night just before I fall asleep. I also like to keep up with news from Seattle and my hometown of Pittsburgh. Furthermore, I am interested in practicing the foreign languages that I study by listening to music and radio broadcasts. This part is tricky because it requires two things: an easy to navigate guide that classifies stations according to genre and location and support for all of the various codecs that stations use for streaming.

An internet radio would achieve all of these things and more and the Squeezebox Boom had all of the features that I was looking for and maybe a little more. I was also looking to save a little bit of money, however, and even though I may still get the Boom someday, I wanted to try and get the same functionality out of something that I already own. My iPhone serves as my alarm clock. Why not try to duplicate as many features as possible using it?

First off, I should state that I do not currently know of a way to use either the SqueezeCenter server or the SqueezeNetwork with the iPhone. I imagine that this functionality would not become (legitimately) available anytime soon. However, my interests lay mainly in the various streaming services that are compatible with the Boom and other Squeeze-compatible devices.

Here are the services that the Boom supports:

• Amazon: It can add songs to the Amazon wish list for purchase.


• Deezer: Free on-demand music service.


• Last.fm: Personalized streaming service.


• Live365: Internet radio network.


• MP3Locker: Put your music in the cloud.


• Pandora: Another streaming service.


• RadioIO: Internet radio network.


• RadioTime: Directory of internet radio streams.


• Rhapsody: Music subscription service.


• Shoutcast: Another directory of internet radio streams.


• SiriusXM: Satellite radio.


• Slacker: Another streaming service.

I'm not interested in all of these services and not all of them are available on the iPhone currently, but here is how I "constructed" my radio:

• Speakers: This is the real expense because you will want a set that provides good sound. I'm still looking for a kit that will cost less than the Boom but provide good sound. There are many options out there, I just have not decided yet.


• Wunder Radio: This app by WeatherUnderground costs $5.99. It provides RadioTime and RadioIO stations, which allow the iPhone to play windows media streams and provides a useable directory of stations.


• Last.fm


• Pandora


• Slacker


• Deezer


• Shoutcast


• Simplify Media: This allows you to play non-DRM mp3s from your iTunes library on your iPhone from anywhere. This serves as a substitute for some of the functionality of the Squeezecenter server.
  

In addition to these services, there is a SiriusXM player in private beta that should be available soon. There is also talk of a live365 player, leaving only Rhapsody and MP3locker unsupported on the iPhone. I'm not using those two services, so I'm willing to let them slide. I am currently a Sirius subscriber, so I can't wait for that app to become available.

There are a number of other radio apps that I enjoy on the iPhone that could enhance the device as an internet radio substitute, including AOL radio, iheartradio, NPR Mobile, and FlyCast.

So far, it works well. I have noticed that certain apps stop playing if you do not interact with the screen every half hour. There also is no sensible way to make the broadcast stop the way that a sleep times does on an alarm clock. As I discover solutions for some of these issues, I'll post them.