Archive for Tech

My Favorite Apps Of 2011

January 12, 2012 apple, iPhone, Tech No comments

2011 gave us all some great app for our iDevices. It also gave a few people brand new iDevices. I’d Like to highlight 7 great app you should get that came out in 2011. So for fun and some for reference.

Flipboard was only available for the iPad. Now its on the iPhone and iPod Touch for FREE. Basically it will personalize news for you. You can add all sorts of news and social networks like Facebook, twitter, Flickr and instagram among others.

Roku If you own a Roku you’ll love this app. Not only is a remote control for the Roku but it lets you browse the channels and has a keyboard in it. it’s FREE

PicFrame This is that app that let you place multiple pictures into one. We see this a lot on instagram. Lot of borders and patterns are there to choose from. Lots of sharing options including email, twitter, Facebook and instagram. cost $0.99

Instacast  This is a great audio/video podcast app. If you like to watch or listen to any podcast you know that you can’t download them via iTunes when you’re not on wi-fi. This will solve that.  It also has show notes to follow, background play and a large library to browse. cost $1.99

Jetpack Joyride  This is one of those addicting games. Easy to play, just tap the screen to jump around. There are so many goals to meet that you’ll have a hard time putting it down. Basically what you do is see how far you can get with out crashing. Lots of fun power ups and skins to buy with the coins you earn in the game. Just when you think you are finished with the game it just keeps going. It’s a great quick game to play while waiting around and its FREE!

Temple Run This is another one of those quick games i love to play. It looks like Indiana Jones  except that you are being chased by scary monkeys because you stole their golden idol. You guide the guy thought this maze of obstacles like pits, fire and narrow paths. It uses the tilt feature to move from right to left. If you collect enough coins you can improve power ups and collect characters. right now its FREE.

Can I Stream It  This is a very useful app if you’re to stream movies on your tv or computer. Just type in the movie that you’re looking for and it will show you if it’s available on Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, Amazon Instant, VUDU, Crackle, YouTube and Blockbuster. (Wow there’s more service around than I thought.) It will also show you if you can rent and buy them as well. You can also set up reminders and push notifications.

So there it is my favorite released Apps of 2011.

Cheers!

 

The iPod Recall Hookup

December 22, 2011 apple, Music, Tech No comments

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*update 1/12/12* Got a package from apple last week. i opened it up and there was a letter telling me that the did indeed run out of replacement 1st gen nanos. Under that letter was a new 8GB iPod nano.

 

About a month ago I got an email from apple stating that there is a recall on 1st gen iPod nanos. I signed up for it and about a week later I got a box to ship it back to them.

I was quoted 6-8 week return time for my replacement. No big deal on time it’s an old 2GB iPod I hardly use. It sadly collects dust on a self.

The news is out now from mashable that Apple ran out I replacement units and is now sending people a 6th Gen nano. Most likely the 8GB ( the smallest size for that model) but it has no warranty, all those nanos were out of warranty anyway.

So that’s a hook up. I basically traded up with no fees but I’m kinda bummed. The thing is I already have a newer 16GB nano. It does make a great watch. I’m going to miss that classic click wheel iPod. I also has a few accessories that only fit the 1st gen model.

Incoherent twitter updates: That can be my next tweet

December 12, 2011 Fun stuff, Tech No comments

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The web site is yes.thatcan.be/my/next/tweet

It’s good fun. Basically it grabs random words from your past twitter updates and makes a sentence or two. A very incoherent sentence. They read as If you just learned English.

There is an app for ios and android. I grabbed the iOS app and well it’s need help on the posting to twitter part but for .99¢ it’s a good time. You’ll laugh and laugh at the updates it produces.

iOS Jailbreak, Meh

November 17, 2011 iPhone, Tech, thoughts No comments

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So I recently picked up a used iPhone 3GS for cheap money. I already have an iPhone 4 as my primary pocket gadget. This one is for fun and to save battery life on my iPhone 4 while playing many podcasts during my work day.

This 3Gs is a bit tired. Soon I’ll be making a purchase through CNN for some parts. They sell lots of mobile device parts for great prices. you just have to wait a couple of weeks to get your parts from china.

So I decided to go ahead and jailbreak the 3Gs. I must say it was very easy to do with the Red Sn0w app on the Mac. So far with this jailbreak I must say that I’m not that impressed. The biggest features that I found useful was a couple UI tweaks. Let me note that the 3Gs has no cell service and I do not plan to get any. Perhaps if this was my primary phone I’d be more interested in other features.

I had always thought that jailbreaking got users a ton of free apps and features. It looks to me that it’s just another app store filled with apps that apple has rejected.

With all these new feature with iOS lately I guess I see the point or I’m just use to the look and feel of the stock iOS.

I’ll give it a couple of weeks maybe I’ll find something great for me or maybe I’ll return it back to stock.

Custom Vibrations in iOS5

October 16, 2011 iPhone, Tech No comments

iOS 5 brought us over 200 new features to our iPhones, iPod touches and iPads. During the keynote Apple couldn’t touch base on all of them of course. So that means it up to us to dig through the iOS site to find these new features or if you’re like me you’ll sit and look through the software it self.

I was looking through the settings and here’s where I went. General>Accessibility there I found something new. Custom Vibrations.

Now this is pretty neat I must say. We can have a custom vibration for each contact. So what you have to do is turn this on. Then close out of the settings app. Next head over to a contact and press the “edit” button. Once you press this you’ll magically see an option that says vibration. Its set to the default.

Go ahead and press the vibration option you’ll get options to choose what kind of vibration you want for that contact. iOS 5 comes with some good preinstalled vibrations. We also get the option to create a custom one. The method for creating is pretty cool too.

Just start by tapping the screen, you’ll see ripples on the screen. Once you’re done creating the vibration you can play it back, save it and give it a name.

This feature is great. Not so great if you’re the baggy pants kind of a person. Just keep in mind that if the vibration you make is rather intense it could put a damper on the battery life.