Wednesday March 11, 2009
Asus 1000HE I recently purchased a Asus 1000HE 10" netbook. My initial impression is that I really like it. The keyboard is a little cramped but compared to playing around with various 9" netbooks this is very usable. I've gotten OpenSolaris installed and almost working on it. When I get the last kinks worked out I'll blog the details.
( Mar 11 2009, 08:04:18 AM PDT )
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My iPhone Applications I promised a friend new to the iPhone that I'd post a list of the applications I'd used, tried, found useful, or found useless. That was a long time ago. The list keeps getting longer and it is really hard to keep up with the list of applications (mostly free) that I've downloaded and deleted.
Wins:
- TWC (The Weather Channel); I live in an area with volatile weather and I travel a fair bit.
- Facebook; I only became interested in social networking when good mobile clients became available. Now the clients are useful. They make the stop on the trail or the grocery line easier to deal with.
- Fitness; this diary application is a good chunk of the reason I'm 40lbs lighter after 1/2 a year or so.
- LinkedIn; Probably unnecessary given the frequency that I interact with LinkedIn but it is a reasonable client.
- Twitterific; Do I like microblogging? Not sure, but this was my favorite of the twitter clients that I tried.
- Google; I use mostly reader, docs, notebook, and news. I think web based applications are at least somewhat painful to use. But for reading blogs syncing with desktop reading is necessary and for the other things standalone applications that I've tried havn't come close.
- Flixster; I'm not a huge movie goer but the ability to look at times, see reviews, and see a trailer wherever is starting to change that.
- MySpace
- HanDBase; I've only used the iPhone software but this seems to be a really good personal database manager. I plan on getting the PC software. I used some free software on my treo to maintain poker and other databases and was bummed when such things didn't initially exist on the iPhone.
- Pandora; Streaming audio based upon my suggestions: what a killer idea. This program is hurt by being made to be a second class citizen by Apple's silly rules against backgrounding.
- Stanza
- Kindle; wrt ebook readers for the iPhone see http://blogs.sun.com/mph/entry/kindle_2. Right now it is second rate but I see no reason why it shouldn't equal or surpass the other readers. When I got this I dumped some of the standalone readers I had for specific documents (e.g. US constitution).
- eReader
Purgatory:
- HoldEm; gets boring fast
- GraphCalc; wish I had this when I was in school
- DarkRoom; the camera on the iPhone just isn't good enough to usually care
- Night Stand; mostly amusing because of the icon
- WiFiFoFum; scopes are cool but useful?
- Frotz; bring back memories
- Ping Lite
- Lighter
- iMapMyRun; none of the run/hike mapping software was useful to me maybe 'cuz most of my runs and hikes are in areas with fairly poor GPS reception
- RunKeeper
- Everytrail
- Amazon.com; not a bad application but I'm going to do most of my buying on something with a keyboard and a useful screen so this is just really about tracking packages
- Backgrounds; I think these were initially a lot cooler. I suspect copyright issues got in their way.
- Lifestream; of the low authentication social applications this is one of the most amusing.
- Zippo Lighter; the kids like playing on my phone.
- Jelly Car; My niece's favorite game.
- Enigmo; My favorite game!
- Tap Tap Revenge
- Gigotron; this database for the SF Bay Area really isn't very complete
- MoodTouch
- Woopie; a little bathroom humor is good for anybody.
- Fart For Free
- Sound Box
- USA TODAY; gotten little use as I've used google news more and more.
- iHandyLevel; trendy but probably not very useful.
- Cradle; mesmerizing
- EccoNote; I thought I mgiht use this more but I havn't.
- Trailguru
- Google Earth
- DigiLite
- Shazam
- TouchTerm
- LivePoker
- AroundMe; searching on the maps program is good enough that this gets little use.
- midomi; I would have though this and shazam would have been more fun for me but they rarely get used.
- VNC; a gimic?
- SportsTap; occasionally useful to those around me.
- Wikipanion
- Labyrinth LE
- Loopt
- Yelp
- YPMobile
- GoodGuide
- iPickupLines; way funny
- FreeWi-Fi; this has been useful a few times
- UPL; stupider then iPickupLines but it still has its moments
- TV.com; I don't watch enough TV to make any of the TV viewers/guides very useful
- What's On?
Downloaded but havn't tried or don't remember:
- Strat Assault
- Sudoku
- PuzzleFree
- FourFree
- TypePad
- PAC-MAN
- iTick
- SnapTell
- Easy Wi-Fi
- Joost
- Tangram Pro
- S.deadbeef
- CraigSearch
- Hotelsnearme
- Bookmarks
- Reign Free
- EyeTricks
- DoneDrinkn
- Checkers
- Mancala FSS
- FallingBalls
- DDR S Lite
- Fastlane Lite
- Bounce Lite
- Public Radio
- LightBike
- vlingo
- Hotels
- Hotel Sites
- HotelRadar
- Geotags
- GRAMMYs
- iJiggles
- iBurn
- Watchmen
- MadSheels
- Whiteboard
- MobileFiles
- MarbleMash
- Brain Tuner
- PocketGuitar
- Translator
- Cube
- LiveJournal
- YouNote
- iDoodle2lite
- Shanghai
Losers: I don't keep track of these. I've deleted quite a few applications. One that is close to useless but I was stuck with until HanDBase came along was PokerTrak. From not being able to get the data off the phone to having real limitations in what you could enter (like, I can't enter 3-5 for the blinds) this application is really lame. I suspect it worked for the authors set of games but shouldn't have ever really become a generally available application.
( Mar 11 2009, 07:52:26 AM PDT )
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Kindle 2 I recently purchased a Kindle 2. I've read electronic books in the past including on a laptop (I just got an Asus 1000HE netbook; I could see using it where good PDF reading or a backlight was necessary), a RocketBook (how fast does history disappear?), my old Palm based Treo, and my iPhone. I liked the RocketBook if content wasn't so hard to get or to put on the device. The week or so I've spent with my Kindle 2 has made it clear that it is miles ahead of those options. The iPhone Kindle Reader is a strong play in combination with the Kindle 2 but not on its own. This review from CNET gets the various iPhone options right in my experience. The biggest missing part to me from the iPhone Kindle reader isn't that the buying experience is way more painful then it needs to be but that you can't read subscriptions. The most common thing for me to read on the run is a periodical. My biggest current gripes with the Kindle 2 are the inability to organize my documents (hierarchy would be nice, tagging with multiple views would be even better) and the lame PDF reading/conversion (caveat I've only used free.kindle.com).
I believe the original Kindle shipped with a protective case. The Kindle 2 didn't. I purchased a Belkin Neoprene Sleeve. It seems like something that should have come with the Kindle 2. I feel better putting the Kindle 2 into my backpack with something between it and the rest of the random set of stuff I carry around.
( Mar 11 2009, 06:23:56 AM PDT )
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Oddity Faire I recently saw Les Claypools's Oddity Fair at Mont Bleu in Stateline, NV. The lineup was Saul Williams, The Yard Dogs Road Show, and the Oddity Fair.
Before the show I found some videos on youtube which got my attention:
I was almost out of luck when I showed up without a ticket and the show was sold out. Fortunately there were some tickets released late and I was able to enjoy the show. It was a nice surprise to see a show like this sell out in Tahoe. Maybe Mont Bleu will go back to having more interesting events?
I missed Saul Williams. That set must have been really short.
The Yard Dogs were like a carny side show with good music and a
burlesque sub theme. Sword swallowing style carny acts, weird sub
themes some making fun of other music genres, a pretty cool 50s style
burlesque show (cool feathers, pasties, nice bodies, good
choreography, classy), and some pretty good music including various
voices, guitar, bass, drums, and horns. The video about doesn't do it justice.
Oddity Faire was a percussionist (xylophone and other
like instruments), trap set, cellist, and bassist (Les). On the
surface that is 2.5 rhythmic instruments and one 1.5 melodic
instruments (splitting the percussionist) but in reality Les pretty
much plays lead and some barely bass like instruments (the
single string variable tuned hammered bass for instance). I like
their stuff but it can be repetitive, spacey, and dark. A pretty
intense crowd down front but nothing I couldn't keep up with. Les likes to
mess with peoples heads and tease songs of his that are popular. He
teased Sea of Cheese and others. I like that kind of stuff and as a
Claypool fan I have a hard time imagining how you couldn't at least
learn to deal with it but it still seems to get his fans going. His
band wore some weird masks at times but in general they were pretty
vanilla. At least for what it could have been or what the Yard Dogs
just had thrown at us. Les vanilla, heh, maybe not.
( Mar 11 2009, 05:58:06 AM PDT )
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