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More Apps

December 26, 2012

Time to talk about some more iPhone and iPad apps. These are apps that I tend to use a lot and in no particular order. I will try to include a pointer to the app on the iTunes store and/or developer web site,

Genius Scan

Genius Scan utilizes the rear facing camera as a scanner. This is primarily an iPhone app, but it runs on any iPad with a rear facing camera. The app takes a picture using the camera, then it allows you to de-skew the image so that it is square. Here’s a couple of screen shots to explain what I mean.

Once you save the image as either color, b/w or greyscale, you can title, add tags, etc. Then you can either save to dropbox or email the document. There is a basic version (free) and a plus version ($2.99).

Waze

Waze is a GPS Mapping app. What makes Waze different from other mapping apps is that it free. Waze uses the network connection to update the Waze servers with information about traffic, road obstructions and police presence. It will suggests alternate routes when traffic is bogged down on your priority route. You can report accidents, slow downs and speed traps. You can optionally have those reports appear on Twitter and/or Facebook.

To use this app safely in a car, you will need to get some sort of windshield mount and a 12v power connector. You can find this stuff online at Amazon and other online etailers.

Here’s the iTunes link

Now for fun stuff. Let’s talk about games. Here are few of the games that I use to amuse myself when I’m bored and tired of reading.

Crosswords

Okay, I admit it. I’m a crossword puzzle junkie. The crossword puzzle app is called “Crosswords“. The Crosswords app automatically downloads passwords every day. You can choose which puzzles to download. If you have a subscription to crossword puzzle providers (like the NY Times puzzle) you can enter the username and password to download those puzzles.

You can also sync puzzles between IOS devices. You can start a puzzle on your iPad and finish it on your iPhone.

Word Warp

Word Warp is a word jumble game. Each round you are given six letters that you must unscramble into words. If you get any of the six letter words, you get to continue to the next round. Simple but amusing. Each round lasts 2 minutes. There is a free version with ads and a paid version without ads.

That’s enough for now. More post to come on apps.

 

Joe

Categories: apps, games, iPad, iPhone, Technology

Comments: 1 Comment

There’s an App for that

December 17, 2012

First, some administrivia. This is my 100th post. How’d that happen?

I thought I would write about some of my favorite iPhone/iPad apps. As many of you know (or may not) I own a 3rd gen iPad and in iPhone 4s. Here in no particular are some of the apps that I use a lot. Note, most of the hyperlinks takes you to the iTunes store.

Shazam

Shazam is in app for identifying music. Push the button and the app will listen for about 30-60 seconds and report to you what you are listening. It is truly amazing. Even works with classical music. BTW, it’s free.

GroceryIQ

An app for managing grocery lists. Sync’s with your grocery list in the cloud. So you can add something on the iPad list and it shows up your iPhone list. There is also a web version. Free. There is also an Android version.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud file storage service. I pay $10 a month for 100Gb of storage. There are Dropbox apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, etc. You selectively sync folders on to your device.

Sheet Music Apps

When the iPad first came out, I decided it would be an excellent platform for storing my collection of sheet music. I had hundreds of pages of sheet music stored in loose leaf binders. This was a killer app for me.

Readdledocs and PDF Expert

At first I used Readledocs together with dropbox to put my sheet music (stored as PDF files on Dropbox) on to my iPad. I also used a similar app called PDF Expert. I believe that both apps support Google drive (another cloud storage service). Both apps support annotation of the files. Readdledocs is $4.99 and PDF Expert is $9.99.

Forscore

Forscore is a sheet music management app. One loads music scores in PDF format into the app. Then one can assign to a genre (eg. Classical, Pop, etc.)

But there’s more. You can create ‘Set Lists’ then organize according to the way you plan to play the music. You can import from Dropbox and other cloud storage services. Then add other meta-data related to each score (author, tags, etc.)

They also sell music scores. Price $4.99. Well worth the money.

Musicnotes

Musicnotes is another sheet music app. The difference here is that it is primarily for viewing scores bought from their service on musicnotes.com. The app is free, but you have to buy music from them.

They have an option for loading PDF files that you have created. But this costs $9.99 and doesn’t work very well. I either scan the music on my flat bed scanner or use an app called DeskPDF to create the PDF file. For my money, Forscore is way better.

PWsafe

PWsafe is an app for managing usernames and passwords. The app is free, but for a couple of dollars you can add the function to sync password files on Dropbox or other cloud file services. In my online world I have many accounts on many different services. (eg. Banking, Shopping, Social media, Subscriptions, etc.). Using the same password on all of one’s accounts is a bad idea. So remembering multiple passwords is (at least to me) impossible. PWsafe encrypts the file that stores your passwords. Now you only need one master password to open the file. IOS devices and Android supported as well as Windows PC.

That’s enough for now. More later…

Categories: Music, Reviews, Technology
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New Laptop

November 30, 2012

The time has come to consider replacing my aging HP Laptop. It’s going on 4.5 years old now. I probably would have replaced it sooner if it were not for my purchase of my iPad.

So here are my decision points. I seriously considered getting a Mac book but rejected the idea based on the price. Well configured Mac books were running over $1500. Ouch!

So considering that I am an HP retiree, I have access to HP’s Employee Purchase Plan. Not a huge discount, but i’d save a couple of hundred dollars.

Prices start around $400 and go up as one adds options like additional memory or larger disk, etc. I can get a fairly well configured laptop for about $800. Also, this time of year HP is heavily discounting stuff.

So here’s where all of friends can help. Most of the new laptops come with Windows 8 or Windows 8 Pro. Does anyone have any experience with Win 8? Is it worth the extra $25 to upgrade to Win 8 Pro? Considering what I’ve read, Win 8 Pro mostly has features that I don’t really need, like access to corporate domains.

I am particularly interested in the <4lb laptops. One way they cut down on weight is to eliminate the DVD drive. DVD drive is external option. I only need a DVD drive once or twice a year. Most of the time I can do without. To me this seems a reasonable tradeoff.

For a disk drive i will probably go for the largest capacity and fasted drive. Nuff said.

Memory. Most laptops come with default of 2GB and options for 4, 6, or 8Gb. Is it worth it to add the additional memory? I think so bot not sure.

Other options are software packages like MS Office, Norton AV, etc, I believe that their are decent Anti Virus packages for free available. I will probably get the MS Office. Price is not outrageous.

Any other issues I’ve missed?

Categories: Technology, Windows
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Sandy

October 30, 2012

For the first time in our lives, we were not in harms way for a hurricane / Nor’easter that hit New England. While our east coast friends were getting doused with heavy rain and wind, we were sitting nicely on our balcony watching the sun go down into the Pacific.

When we lived in Billerica, we ALWAYS lost power. Always. One of the real useful sources of information I use is Twitter. Billerica Police has a twitter account (BillericaPD). They keep it up to date with very local information about stuff like trees down or flooding. If you live in Billerica, get yourself a twitter account and follow them. They also feed information from neighboring towns.

Billerica also has a service called “Billerica Code-Red” (Click here to register ) Code red is a free service that Billerica uses to reach out to neighborhoods with emergency information, like power outages, school closings, etc. By the way, it’s free.

Facebook seems to be useful for seeing how your friends are getting on. Though some of the pictures are not always the real deal. Photoshop seems to be alive and well. One of the pictures making the rounds was the pictures of the guards at Arlington National Cemetery. Nice picture, but it wasn’t taken yesterday. I recommend snopes.com for an excellent source for information about computer myths and hoaxes.

That’s all for now. I hope that everyone gets there power back on and everything cleaned up and back to normal.

Joe

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:San Pedro

Categories: California, Technology
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Twelve Networking Truths

May 21, 2012

While looking on my hard drive for something else I found the following document about networking. This is about “computer” networking not the “people” kind of networking. It amused me a while ago and amuses me yet again. It was written by Ross Callon. Here’s the link Originally written 1996. Still amusing.

  1. It Has To Work.
  2. No matter how hard you push and no matter what the priority, you can’t increase the speed of light.
    2a. (corollary). No matter how hard you try, you can’t make a baby in much less than 9 months. Trying to speed this up *might* make it slower, but it won’t make it happen any quicker.
  3. With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead.
  4. Some things in life can never be fully appreciated nor understood unless experienced firsthand. Some things in networking can never be fully understood by someone who neither builds commercial networking equipment nor runs an operational network.
  5. It is always possible to agglutinate multiple separate problems into a single complex interdependent solution. In most cases this is a bad idea.
  6. It is easier to move a problem around (for example, by moving the problem to a different part of the overall network architecture) than it is to solve it.
    6a. (corollary). It is always possible to add another level of indirection.
  7. It is always something
    7a. (corollary). Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two (you can’t have all three).
  8. It is more complicated than you think.
  9. For all resources, whatever it is, you need more.
    9a (corollary) Every networking problem always takes longer to solve than it seems like it should.
  10. One size never fits all.
  11. Every old idea will be proposed again with a different name and a different presentation, regardless of whether it works.
    11a (corollary). See rule 6a.
  12. In protocol design, perfection has been reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

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