My Very First Blog

This is my my very first blog post. I set my blog up at Blogger.

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Setting up gmail was a pain!

It is time for an App update!

I have to say, this past month for Apps was an interesting one. If there is one word that comes to mind, it is mainstream. Many mainstream websites and companies released Apps. It was pretty nice to see. So, in all of my clicking and checking out the new Apps, here are some of my favorites.

I say phone a lot in this blog, but, I think all of these apps apply to the Touch as well.

Travel Apps:

Tripit. Yes! The gang at Tripit.com released an iPhone app. Finally! Overall, it is a nice reference app and a must if you are a Tripit subscriber. I wish it had the ability to add to your trip. I know this brings in a whole new ball of wax with syncing, but, I hope the gang at Tripit considers it. There are many times I will get a notification about a meeting or dinner and all I have is my phone handy. Would be great to add the information right then and there.

plan.pack.go: Brilliant App. Probably one of the most thought out apps I have seen hit the store. First off, you can choose and augment a variety of templates or create your own. The main templates are business or vacation for either a male or a female. Once there, you have a variety of sub-topics that you can easily edit, delete or add to such a Preparation, Basic, Clothes, Health and Medicine, Toiletries, Gadgetry, Leisure, Misc and before you leave. So, simply augment their template for your standard travel regimen and tap away as you pack. I have set mine up and added topics for camera gear, golf gear, etc and simply tap on the corresponding template. I no longer have an excuse if I leave something at home!

Airline Seat Guide. I still give the tip of the hat to Seatguru for seat listings, but, this is a handy app to have on my phone. Sometimes a flight gets changed or an aircraft is swapped and I need to know where the good seats are, exit rows, etc. The only bummer is they do not have every plane configuration. Their app page says they are currently working to make sure each aircraft is covered in their app.

General Productivity:

Dictionary.com: Exactly what you think it would be. Easy to use and clean interface. I know there are some apps out there that stick the entire dictionary on your phone, but, I so rarely need one that I have been more than happy with this free online service.

DirecTV. I was going to call this my app of the month, but, felt it was a cop out because its not an app everyone can use. However, if you are a Directv user, you will love this thing. It basically gives you the same functionality of their web page. You can log in, search for shows and set them to record. Very handy when I am on the road and discover there is a show on I want to see. I stopped using the web site altogether because this app is considerably easier and faster that the DTV site. I just wish I could delete shows from my recorder as well.

Duck You Undo. Not since What The Font has there been such an item that will allow me to curse during a presentation without really cursing. This is a slick app. How many times has your phone auto-corrected a word and in turn put in the incorrect word? My favorite Restuarants becomes restraints. Whoops. Can you imagine that? I found a great restraint for us tonight. Eeeeep! So, the next time you compose an email, click on Duck You. It will then keep track of every auto-correct your phone made. When you are done composing the email simply click on review and it will show you a one at a time listing of each questionable word as well as the one it placed in the email. You can then tap away on whichever word you wanted. Keep doing this through the list and click done. Duck You will then send the document to your email application so you can send it off.

Tipilicious: There are so many tip calculators out there and I have yet to find one with a very pretty interface. Tipilicious is the closest app. Nice looking icon, nice main screen.

Yahoo and Yahoo Messenger. Bout time! I gave Yahoo Messenger a quick check and its pretty decent. However, I use BeeJive to run multiple chat clients at the same time. However, the main Yahoo app made the cut to my phone. The Yahoo provides what you would expect, access to their main news and areas. However, there are a few things they do that I like. One is, they try to keep you in the app as much as possible. So, instead of it firing up a web page for stories, I get to stay in the App. Another really nice feature is interests. This has been the first app where I could choose golf and then choose what news sites I want the app to hit to gather stories for me. I can even choose how many headlines it downloads each time.

Some other apps that have been released that you might want to know about:

Shuttlerfly. AAA Discounts. Etrade. Wall Street Journal


Games

Sigh, I completed Airport Mania. I so miss it. Far and away my most favorite game for the phone so far. I am spending my time now with iSudoko, Bookworm and Jetset when I am in an airport. I tried the game Sally's Spa because a few said it was close to Airport Mania. It is indeed the closest thing I have found, but, the game is a bit on the irritating side. You hire employees that just sit there and do one specific thing only? Does not make sense in the real world so its strange to see in the virtual one. Watch Sally run around while the person who pushes the on button on the spa taps her feet. Wow, what a digression. Sorry about that.

Crazy Machines. Wholly heck! What a game! Its almost smarter than me. Wait, it is smarter than me! The game allows you to build machines using pulleys, ropes, wind, etc etc. The combinations are endless and is an excellent game for students!

Mighty Charms: A bit like Bejeweled. The one cool thing this app does is allow you to choose a diagonal as a set. I also like the quality of the graphics.

So, there you have it! Until next month or maybe next few weeks. Who knows!

Views from a classroom

A full size version of this image can be found here

Someone onced told me they cannot stand when people compare NZ with any other location. I think its just a typical thing with humans. We have our comfort zones and our daily routine, so, when we bump into something out of our ordinary we compare. I for one know I do this.

It is pouring in New Plymouth today, my last day in NZ before heading to Sydney. I think for fun I might snap pictures of cars that we have in the US that have different names in NZ.

Ok, I digress. The photo above shows how different two cultures can be.

Oh, I am also in love with the new verion of Tweetdeck. Damn digression dissorder.

So, let me point out what I think are some visual things that caught my eye as things we do not have back at home in our schools.

1. They do not have recess. It is morning Tea. It usually starts at about 10:45. At one school where I was working with 12th graders (I need to remember what they call that here, it is not 12th grade) they decided to bring morning tea to them!




The students enjoyed this considerably compared to the brown bag snacks they usually pack.

2. No lockers! I have yet to see one. Everywhere I wandered at one school backpacks were left outside the rooms and around the buildings (you can see some against the building on the left)

3. Uniforms! Most schools have a summer and winter Uni. You might notice part of the Uni is either sandals or black polished shoes with socks. Some students actually prefer to play barefoot during Morning Tea and recess. Some people in NZ usually walk around barefoot period. Its pretty cool to see. On days they do no have to wear Unis, they get something called a Mufti, but it is rare. Seniors at some schools get to wear a different color shirt than the rest.

4. Each school has a Haka. I was hoping to see one to film it, but, no luck. The haka rocks!!

5. One school I worked at (the one pictured above) is addicted to handball. In that photo alone there are close to 10 seperate games of handball. Its all this school does. Each game has different rules and a set location. As students graduate and new students show up the rules of each game augment slightly. The teachers said it is fun to walk by at the start of the year then mid year to see how each individual handball game is played. They play against every wall in the school!

I know there are more, but, its 3am here in NZ. My brain might need a few more hours to wakeup completely.

Hiking in New Zealand

Care to take hike with me in New Zealand? You will sadly learn my panning technique is terrible, but, the birds sound really cool!

And you thought you were safe from iPhone posts while I was in New Zealand

Ah, my iPhone. How I miss it. No, it has not been stolen, it has just had a slight lobotomy ever since I got to New Zealand. Even with the very scary Data Roaming turned on (only for 5 minutes, that should cost me $100) my iPhone has no idea where it is and what it can do. No GPS, no location services, nada. This was not an issue when I was in London, my iPhone acted normally there.

I have been looking for another iPhone owner to see what the deal is. I have yet to see one. Walking into the local Vodaphone store left everyone in the store gawking at my phone. Turns out they are only sold in Auckland.

However, there is a silly cool thing my iPhone was able to do in Auckland and I hope the US takes a cue from this.

Last time I was in Auckland, Air New Zealand was going through a major construction facelift. I thought it was just updating check in. Boy, was I wrong. They updated the entire way they do business with the public.


The first thing I noticed when I checked in, no lines, no agents behind big metal desks. Your first step is to walk up to kiosks. There is an agent at each kiosk group if you need them. If you are self sufficient, you just type in your confirmation or slide in your ID and your boarding pass will be printed.

However, some people do not even need to do this. If you have a wide variety of mobile devices, ANZ has gone ahead and developed apps that give you this:


Yep, that is my boarding pass on my iPhone! All I had to do is download the free app and enter my confirmation codes. I now have all of my New Zealand boarding passes in my iPhone.

So, how did check in work for me? I just showed up to the kiosk and placed this screen on a sensor on one of the check in units. It then asked if I had luggage. Once I said yes, it asked me to put my luggage on the scale next to the unit. Once I did this my luggage tags printed for me which I attached to the bag. I then took it to someone waiting by the luggage belt who sent my bags on their way.

At the gate, I was greeted by another scanning device.


A little known fact is that ANZ really could care less who you are if you are traveling within NZ. There is no security to pass through, IDs to check, zip. So, all you do is wait by the gate and 20 minutes before your flight takes off they call your flight number.

So, once it was my turn to board all I had to do was this:


If you squint, you can see a little green list above my hand giving me the all clear.

Once the light goes off, a receipt prints for you with your seating information to show the flight attendant


This is just ingenious. This geek was quite smitten for the whole process which has been in place since November and apparently working very well with visible reduction times in check in and boarding.

I know we could never do this in the state at the level they have implemented in NZ, but, man was this fun and easy!

Sweet, I finally scored a United Suite Dreams Suite!

Additional photos I took of the United Suite Dreams suite can be found here.

United's offical Suite Dreams website


United has been slowly upgrading their International Business and First Class with something they are calling Suite Dreams. This was the first plane I have been on with this new configuration. United plans to have all of their planes done by the end of 2009.

This is not the most in depth review, but, here it goes. It actually kept me slightly entertained on the flight and left everyone wondering how odd I was. Most of you already know the answer to the question.

Overall

The suite itself, Sweeeeeet! It is pretty much what most people want. A little privacy and the ability to lay down flat and sleep on the plane. The suite itself has three shelves to store items. A small top shelf below the 17 inch screen and two small shelfs in a small cover below the screen. One of the shelves could be used instead as a footrest and will be used when it is time to sleep. Well, unless you are a gnome. If you are a gnome you can sleep and keep things stored on all the shelves!

The Seat



The seat had all sorts of adjustments. The footrest came completely up which made for cozy movie viewing.

The seat in lie down mode was pretty nice. It reminded me somewhat of those flights so light you end up with a row to yourself but the seat belts are not jabbing at you and you have considerably more room. If you asked me to nit pick, I would say that if you are over 6 feet you might not want to sit in the upper level of business. You will not have as much room. Also, the top shelf you put your feet into does not have a pile of room for the taller people. I was short enough not to worry about having to jam all the toes in there. Also, if you are sitting at the window, get ready to hop over the person in the isle if the seat is in bed mode.

If you look at the Suite Dreams site, you will notice some seats face in the opposite direction, meaning there is a good chance the person across from you is actually facing you. Unless you are super tall, you will never see them. However, I am curious about this configuration. It made no sense to me. The one set of seats I would have turned is the ones facing the bathroom, yet, they only turned one row of them so the poor guy in the first isle next to the bathroom had to watch the door open all the time shining a light on him. It also left the people across from me somewhat facing me opening their suite to mine and their noise to mine. So, if anyone from United or anyone else knows more than me on this one, please fill me in.

The Remote



The remote tucks nicely on the side of your seat. The main controls are your typical menu button, toggle wheel, suite light, flight attendant call, etc. However, when you flip the remote over, you will find a full keyboard as well as some telephone icons and game controls. There is also a credit card slider on the side of the phone.

The suite had no functioning phone capabilities nor did the keyboard have a use. Even when I had to type my name in for a game I used the toggle wheel and selected the letters on the screen. My guess is all of this will be part of a future phone / email / Internet upgrade.

Edit, a friend commented on the remote on my SmugMug album:

The remote is essentially the same as the ones found on Virgin America. On VA, you can chat between seats via the entertainment center, that's where the keyboard comes into play.

The Inflight Entertainment System



The inflight entertainment was a little more than I was expecting. The guide before the plane took off only listed about 6 movies on 6 channels. This is how United usually does it. They just keep playing the same movie on the same channel over and over. You then have to wait for the longest movie to end so they can all start at the same time again on their various channels. You decide to watch a movie 30 mins into this? Too bad.

Well, there were closer to 30 movies and all of them were on demand. So, you could pause and more importantly rewind, etc. I made the poor decision to watch Twilight and a slightly better decision to watch Madagascar 2.

The system also offered a wide variety of music channels which included XM Radio. You could also pause the music as well as make a custom playlist from all of the songs on the system. There are dozens of choices by channels, artists, genre, etc.

There were also games! This was however, one area that did not seem 100% ready to go. You had all your fun games such a bookworm, tetris, bejeweled, etc. You also had the fun option to play with other people on the plane! The 3 games available for inflight play were golf, trivia and Texas Hold Em. However, golf never worked, no one showed up to the poker room (the server also crashed two hours into the flight and never came back) and trivia crashed my system so bad they they had to reboot it from the downstairs central system.

The system also had an area to hook up your iPod. This is a great idea, but, you have to use a proprietary cable to hook into the suite. Once you do hook it up, you can watch videos on the suite screen and integrate the songs from your iPod into the playlist in the system.

Oh, there is a kids area as well. I am sure one day I will thank the gang at United for this. It had about 12 kid games and 6 movies and cartoons.

Extra inputs



The suite has a single 100v power outlet but no secondary airport power. I was hoping for a one two combo so I could charge a camera battery or Bose headset while using the airport empower with my MacBook Pro

There are two ports I was not expecting to see but happy to. Ethernet and USB. I grabbed my Ethernet cable only to find that the port is just a gaping hole. Nothing is in there. There is active USB, but, mine did not work and plugging my iPhone into my neighbors USB port left my phone constantly jumping into and leaving charging mode. It was so rampant (every few seconds) I decided to unplug it to play it safe.

Food



The food reminded me a lot of the type of meal I would get pre 9/11 and pre recession. If anyone from UAL reads this, please keep the Pecan Chicken on the menu. In fact, please bring the darn thing back to your domestic flights where you feed us! I think I am not alone on this. Most people were ordering the chicken over the filet.

This was a really nice way to travel. I hope it only gets better if they decide to implement that Ethernet port I was drooling all over!

Additional Photos I took of the Suite Dreams Suite.

Apps of the week, errr month

Yeah, it was probably a little too ambitious to say I would post Apps of the week.

But, after hours and hours of reading, buying, tapping and evaluating, here are my freshest crop of newest apps.

New App of the moment? A game! AirportMania: First Flight
.99 for this Application? You have to be kidding me! This thing rocks! Very fun, addictive and challenging. Chock full of content with what looks to be more on the way. You run an airport and you have to make sure the planes land on time as well as take off and get maintained. Planes will land faster and faster. Combine this with little twists like bonuses for proper procedure and this is one fun play.

Some Travel Apps
If you know me, you know I am a huge fan of Tripit. Tripit is a free service and has made coordinating my travel a bit more effortless. I was happy to see two apps come out with Tripit support.

Travel Tracker: $19.99? Really? Not worth it whatsoever. However, it is the only thing out with entire TripIt support so I clicked purchase. It is a very good start, but, their implementation of FF mileage tracking as well as flight status is pretty weak. Still, it gives me an overview of itineraries without me needing to hit the web. If you are not a frequent flyer, wait on this app.

FlightTrack Pro: At $9.99 this is another application that I have to question its price point. Yet again, I travel too much not to get this app. FlightTrack Pro will give you live status of your flights that it imports from TripIt. Another nice feature is that it will list gate information. Many times they have the gate correctly when UAL is informing me (via their texting service) of the entirely wrong gate.

GPS with Turn by Turn
G-Map Western US: Apple basically put in wording in their developers agreement that would clear them from liability if a turn by turn application causes injury, etc. Some people thought TBT would never come to the iPhone. For the first TBT application for the iPhone this one is not too bad. It has regular as well as 3D views. You can pre set routes, add POI's and many other things. Here is a review from Cars.com I will enjoy this app for walking wandering a city I am working in or helping a friend find a location as they drive, but, with it lacking voice prompts, I think I am sticking to my Magellan and Tom Tom GPS's

I like Jack in the Box. So?
Fast Food Premium: I have a slight breakfast addiction to the Breakfast Jack at Jack in the Box and the Breakfast Burrito at Del Taco. If we had Sonics out here, I would be addicted to them as well. This is the first application that does a really nice job of listing and finding a large amount of fast food and chain restaurants.

Games
1 vs 100: Based on the game show, this is a fun app. I just wish the announcer did his thing a little faster. It drags the game play a bit.

Money (or lack thereof)
Portfolio Live: I am not sure why I thought it would be a good idea to download a stock application. This is the first app I could find that lists my individual holdings and balances. I like the app, I am just not a fan of the red numbers it is showing me.

Teeter Totters. Apps that I download but might hit the chopping block.

USA News: Offers feeds for MSNBC, CNN, Fox, ABC and CBS. You can choose different categories to feed through. I like it, just wish there were a few more choices of news sources.

Superpages: Somewhat like AroundMe, it lists what is closest to you. A very nice interface, however, it only shows you 10 topics under each category. So, if you want to eat Indian food and its not in the 10 listed food types, too bad and you are doing a hand search. It does offer a wide variety of categories I just wish it it had better options for working down the list.

Hospital Havoc: Very much like Airport Mania. 3x time the price (funny to say that because its only $2.99) with much less content and considerably more repetition. I would think a lot more of this game if I did not download Airport Mania at the same time.

Quik Search: Not a bad application. It offers you the ability to search from a variety of web sources. Why is it low on the list? Just not sure how often I will head to it when I already have most of the Apps as standalone with search built in. If I am going to do a search, there is a good chance I would want to be working in that app instead of another.