26 Apr 10 Droid Update
I’ve had the Droid (affiliate link) for a week or so now, so I can write a bit more about this gadget now that the first flush of excitement of having something new has worn off, and I’ve had time to play around with it, and put it through its paces a little.
It has taken a little to get used to using a touch screen instead of keys and a trackball. I didn’t have any serious issues with the Blackberry trackball. It needed cleaning a few times, but that was probably my fault due to using the device when eating! I thought I had just about all the apps I need on the Blackberry, but I’ve certainly found more to add to the Droid
Using the Android Market I’ve found to be quicker and usually easier than the Blackberry App Store, but then again, on the Blackberry Curve 8330 I had no wi-fi so all data transfer was that much slower. I’ve installed Evernote, as that’s something I use a lot. I’ve also installed the Astro file viewer, as that makes for easy navigation around phone and the SD card. That is easier than the Blackberry, where I had to run the cumbersome slow Management suite on a PC to access the phone itself. I was also pleased to find a nice app to control my access to my Amazon S3 account, and also one for Dropbox, and one for Drop.io. These are all services I make use of, and to have easy phone access has to be a plus.
New for the Droid
The usual suspects line up for Geolocation apps. Foursquare and Brightkite work better on the Droid than they did on the Blackberry Curve. They’re faster and make use of the built in GPS, which the Curve didn’t do. There’s a Gowalla app for the Droid
The GPS works well with Google Maps, and will give you audio directions if you wish. This comes as part of your data package, unlike the Blackberry, where Verizon charged an extra $9.99 a month for the Navigator.
Locale is a very useful app. It’s not free, but costs $9.99. It allows you to set conditions based on your location. For example, you can tell it that everytime it finds your wireless network, to log in, turn off the ringer, and dim the screen. Between midnight and 7am you want the phone to be silent, but only when at home? That can be done too.
Skype mobile comes with the phone, and allows you to talk to other skype users via the Droid (affiliate link). You can’t do video calls (as the video camera is pointing the wrong way!), but you can do anything else you can do on your desktop or laptop Skype program.
There’s a few multi network messaging programs, such as Meebo, which allows simultaneous access to all the major IM networks, such as Yahoo, MSN, Google, AIM and so on. I also found a decent IRC client app!
Last.fm, Slacker, and Grooveshark allow me to listen to some of my favorite music, and DriodLive allows connection to Shoutcast Internet Radio stations (such as NAB Radio). There’s also a built in music app to play any music that you choose to download to the 16GB SD card that comes with the Droid
I’ve heard adverse comments about the camera, but it seems OK. I don’t expect a top class image from a cellphone however high the pixels. It does blow out on the flash somewhat though. It’s easy to share images with the other apps you’ve set up, such as Facebook or MySpace, or your blog if you’ve downloaded the free WordPress app software.
When recording video you can also upload it directly to YouTube if you wish.
Gmail, who I use exclusively for personal and business mail, works just fine.
Downsides?
No apps yet for Audible, or for Reqall. Wi-fi will stop working on occasions, and I have to disconnect and reconnect to get it to transfer data again.
The battery life is well, crap. I left home at 10.30am on Saturday. I took a few photos. I tweeted a lot. I used Foursquare and Brightkite as I moved around locations in town. I used the wi-fi in a coffee store. By a little after 2pm it was telling me I needed to connect to a charger as it was down to 15%. I think I’m going to have to get a second battery, and perhaps one of the larger capacity ones.
All in all though, I’m pleased with the Droid
Tags: accent, amazon s3, apps, audio directions, bar code scanner, blackberry curve, driod, droid, dropbox, excitement, gadget, google, google maps, management suite, sd card, touch screen, trackball, usual suspects, wi fi
07 Jul 08 Do You Tweet?
I’ve seen a number of debates recently about the pros and cons of social media services. Twitter has been high on the list of services under the spotlight – mostly due to it’s sporadic up time of late.
I do sometimes wonder what kind of business model these services have. No obvious advertising, and no fees to pay, how do they make money? How do they make enough money to run the service, let alone make a profit from their endeavors. Ok, I know in the largely open source world profit can sometimes be a dirty world, along with charges, fees and subscriptions, but at the end of the day, however much you’re developing a service or application, you’ve got to eat.
Anyway, I digress.
The point of this article is to make a response to the many comparisons I’ve seen between some of the services.
Twitter is often compared to Plurk. I use both, but I see them as completely different services. Twitter is great in that you can start a conversation on the computer, and seamlessly move to the cellphone, and back. As for the noise, well, there is always going to be a signal to noise ratio. We all post stuff that we think interesting to some of our followers or friends, but which in fact, isn’t.
Here’s a personal example. I’m not interested in getting an iPhone, for a number of reasons that I won’t go into right now. Much as I like to read up on new gadgets, and have done so on the iPhone, it was a screaming noise on Twitter when the first phone came out, and there were a multitude of messages from people giving a running commentary on their status in the line outside the store to get theirs.
However, I didn’t un-follow all these people. I knew they were as excited about their new gadget as I wasn’t. I knew they’d get over it and move on. They did. I’m sure I’ll be equally boring to some when I get a new Blackberry Curve.
I enjoy Plurk sometimes, but it’s much more time consuming. and I find it harder to re-trace earlier conversations at times. It’s all over the place compared to Twitter, and as yet, I can’t use it via SMS, although there is a mobile page.
A different animal to Twitter though, and I don’t see why each cannot co-exist.
The last service I’d like to look at is FriendFeed. I’ve recently joined this, and I wish I’d joined a lot earlier. It’s really like a feed agregator, but I find it useful for snippets of information that I didn’t know about, and while I can get much of the same stuff in Google Reader, FriendFeed focuses it for me. I also like the daily email summary feature. Takes a few seconds to scan down the list, and chose stuff I think I’d like to read. With Google Reader, I tend to subcribe to interesting feeds, and then don’t get the time to read them. With FriendFeed I can at least read some I’d bypass due to time constraints.
Tags: blackberry curve, business model, cellphone, different services, dirty world, endeavors, enough money, followers, friendfeed, gadget, iphone, more time consuming, multitude, new gadgets, open source world, personal example, plurk, pros and cons, signal to noise, signal to noise ratio, twitter, world profit
08 May 08 Rice Cooker
It’s a fairly common small kitchen appliance. I guess quite a number of you have them. To be honest I resisted for ages. Why? I cannot see the point of buying yet another space-robbing gadget when I can make perfectly good rice in a regular saucepan or even in the microwave.
So why did we get one?
It was my mother actually. She wanted to buy us a steamer. We had one in the UK a few years ago, and bought her one, and she got so hooked on it that she espouses their virtues everywhere (and quite rightly so).
We’ve never gotten around to getting one here, and she wanted to put that right.
Only thing is, we couldn’t find one.
Not like the one she has in England anyway. It has a base, that you put water in, and and a heater to make the steam, and then 2 or 3 stacking plastic containers that fit on top into which you put the food you wish to steam.
Couldn’t find one in the local stores here at all. Only rice cookers, with a small steaming basket, kind of an afterthought.
Anyway, Kathy wanted a rice cooker all along, so Mother bought it.
Kathy and I have always had this cultural food difference you see. I was raised on potatoes as my staple starch food item; she was raised on rice. We compromise, but generally, as I do the cooking (at least during the week), I tend to make potato based dishes more often than rice ones.
Perhaps that will change a bit now, as I have to admit that the rice cooker is SO easy. Let me explain that.
I tend to put food on to cook, and get back to work while it’s doing so. I have to keep interrupting my work of course, to be sure nothing overcooks or burns. That’s what’s easy about the rice cooker of course. I can put in the rice, add the water, flick the lever, and go work, and practically forget about the rice. I tend to use a slow cooker a fair bit for the same reason, and more often than not, if I’m roasting or baking, I do it on a low heat, so I’m not going to get engrossed in my work, and burn stuff.
So, ok, I’ll concede, that sometimes, some gadgets can and do make life a little easier. Now, where can I find an automatic beer maker?
Tags: afterthought, burns, compromise, dishes, England, flick, gadget, local stores, microwave, plastic containers, potatoes, rice cooker, rice cookers, saucepan, slow cooker, small kitchen appliance, starch, steam, steamer, virtues
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