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.

Happy New Year!

My friends on the east coast are ringing in the new year already, while we have to wait a little longer on the west coast. I wanted to wish everyone a happy new year. Here's to a 2009 full of peace, prosperity and progress.

Snow!!!

The snowstorm in the Pacific Northwest last night was amazing. We live in an apartment with a view of Seattle. Last night, most of it disappeared behind the falling snow. With no cars on the road, it was so quiet in our neighborhood, which is a rarity. People were sledding down arterial streets last night and enjoying this rare occurrence.

Seattle is not great with snow, so be careful out there and be sure to keep warm safely if you lose electricity. A few years ago, people died in the area by using their grills indoors to keep warm. For information on how to stay safe in the winter in the Seattle metro, see http://www.govlink.org/storm/. Be safe!

Boxee update

This is starting to look like my Boxee blog! There is an update out today that corrects some navigational issues on the apple tv and should address a few bugs. Here is more info: http://blog.boxee.tv/2008/12/16/fixing-bugs/

Boxee Fixed!

Once I got home from an incredibly stressful day with my servers at work, I decided to attack the Boxee freezing problem. It was extremely easy to fix. The answer is here: http://forum.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=2383


To summarize:

1. Get your IP address in settings->network

2. SSH into the AppleTV:

ssh frontrow@[replace with ip address]

3. frontrow is the password

4 enter the following command:

rm /Users/frontrow/Library/Application\ Support/BOXEE/UserData/guisettings.xml

It's as easy as deleting a preference file. Thanks Boxee forums. I'm ashamed that I did not look there sooner.

Boxee upgrade - FAIL!

My attempt to upgrade Boxee on my Apple TV has failed. The install itself seems to have gone okay and the launcher and updater work just fine. However, once Boxee starts, the Apple TV stops responding to the remote and I am forced to reboot. I may have to restore the ATV and start over, which I am hesitant to do because it takes a lot of time. Instead, I will probably wait for the next Boxee update and try to install that using the updater. If that fails, I will restore and reinstall.

Something's dogging the Dog Star

I've been a Sirius Satellite Radio subscriber for years now and have really appreciated having the service. In some ways, radio is even more important to me than the television. Being a graduate student with a full-time job, I don't have a lot of time to watch television, but I do appreciate having music in the background.

Lately, however, things have been a little different with Sirius. After Sirius and XM merged, a number of stations that I enjoyed listening to changed names, playlists and personalities. Although I am as resistant to change as anyone else, I know that I will eventually get settled into a new set of favorite stations. The problem is not really any of these changes, but rather a decline in the quality of the signal itself.

I have a Stiletto 2. I used to dock it using a vehicle kit in the house and it worked very well, in spite of the fact that I live in an apartment with west facing windows on the west coast of the US (Sirius recommends facing your home antenna toward northern Minnesota, which for me is to the northeast.) Recently for aesthetic reasons, I switched to a home dock and my troubles began. I often lose the signal. I am not sure right now if the problem is due to the dock or to local weather conditions and I will have to troubleshoot to see if I can solve the problem.

That problem is really the easy one to fix. Another problem is entirely out of my hands. Stations have started to broadcast the emergency alert system warning tones on a regular and more frequent basis. These are neither tests, which Sirius normally announces, or real alerts. Rather, they happen randomly, sometimes as often as every fifteen minutes.

When the buzzing of the emergency alert is not happening, another problem can occur. Short, random segments of another song will briefly interrupt the broadcast of whatever song is supposed to be playing. This is not only annoying, but it makes the use of the recording feature built into the Stiletto 2 hard to rely upon. To make matters worse, some stations that formerly allowed recording no longer do so. This started happening after the recent channel realignment. I have yet to find a reliable report about if and when Sirius will fix the problem.

Until then, I will wait patiently. Satellite radio has become part of my routine. I can't say that I will wait forever, though. Internet radios like the Squeezebox Boom are looking mighty tempting right about now. Hopefully they are more reliable than my Siruis service has been.

Boxee & Apple TV

I recently started to use Boxee on Apple TV and love it. It took multiple attempts to get the installer to run, but once it did, it worked flawlessly. I now am able to watch Hulu on my television set, which is incredible. I replaced cable with an Apple TV, so Boxee greatly expands my content options and without a service charge.

Currently, I have only noticed two problems with my new setup. First, Boxee's interface on the Apple TV can be a little sluggish. Sometimes it is hard to tell if the system has accepted input from the remote control. It would be wonderful if it could accept remote control commands from the iPhone (not that I am being greedy or expecting too much! ;) ) I imagine that will improve over time as Boxee is currently in alpha.

Also, I occasionally have problems watching content that Hulu flags as accessible only to those 18 and older. Sometimes when I try to watch a show, it will tell me that I have not verified my age. Unfortunately, there is no way to rectify that under the setup that I have currently installed.

The good news is that Boxee now has a version that works with Apple TV 2.3 software. This version allows users to use their own Hulu accounts, which should solve the age verification problem.

Overall, I am very excited about checking this out and will report back after I install the upgraded software. Boxee has a blog with details about their work here: http://blog.boxee.tv/

All mixed up

So, I'm bad at blogging, or at least at being consistent about it. In the spirit of getting back into it, I wanted to write a little about my iPhone woes. Recently, I noticed that it is mixing up the cover art for songs and podcasts. In some cases, it also builds the menus incorrectly, so that when I click on a podcast to get to the episodes, I get a list for another podcast. Everything is okay on iTunes, so I'm not sure what the problem is. So far, the only thing that I have found that consistently solves the problem is to restore the iPhone from a backup. I need to do that again. I sure miss the Apple of a few years ago. They must be having growing pains.

I heart the Wii virtual console

Last week, Nintendo made Metroid available on the virtual console. I was so happy. Not because I like Metroid, but because my partner does. He grew up with the NES (I still had my Atari 2600 at the time) and Metroid was one of his favorite games. I'm really glad that he can play it again on a console. Now, if they would only release Lifeforce...

iPhone and dotMac

One thing that is bothering me about my new iPhone is that it does not have any real interconnection with my .mac account. Given that I am spending almost $100 per year for a really basic suite of services, I would expect them to interact with all of my Apple devices. I am hoping that this will change in the very near future. Namely, I would like the ability to sync my contact and calendar information with .Mac via the EDGE or Wi-Fi connections. I also want to have my published .Mac calendars update automatically when they receive changes synced from the iPhone over the air. Finally, I would appreciate access (even if just read-only access) to the files on my iDisk. I should be able to look at word, excel, pdf, images, and txt files on the phone. Right now, I can get to my iDisk using Safari, but I cannot open any files. All I can see is a list of files. I would also love the ability to easily save or download files to my iDisk. This would protect the integrity of the phone and its storage, while allowing me two-way access to files.

I think it would boost .Mac membership in general if these services were integrated and would be a smart move for Apple in general. Let's see what happens.

iPhone as a PIM

It did not take me long to find my first big fault with the iPhone. Everyone needs different things from a device. I really need a personal information manager (PIM). Basically, I need a great PDA with a phone, e-mail and web access. The iPhone is not yet a great PIM.

The calendar feature is sufficient but is missing a number of features that I would expect in an advanced device like the iPhone. First, I would like a weekly grid view. Currently, you can see a list of upcoming appointments, but if you have too many or too few, you will get more than a picture of your week on the screen. I was surprised to find that the weekly grid was not there, especially considering how useful it would be to allow the user to turn the phone sideways and work with the grid in a landscape orientation.

I also miss having a real task list. My last phone, a Treo 700p did a great job with this. A task list should give me a checkbox for each entry, a description field and a due date with a reminder alarm at minimum. Ideally, it should also allow me to categorize my tasks and give them a priority. Actually, all I am really looking for is true iCal integration, which I don't think is too much to ask.

All of these things would make the iPhone a better PIM. I hope some of the changes come soon. However, I suspect that we may need to wait until Leopard. There are many changes coming to the PIM features in OS X. I think that this may be the real reason why the iPhone lacks so many basic PIM features.