My new(ish) phone: Sprint HTC EVO…

Back on June 4th, I took a half day off work to go to Best Buy and get a new cell phone. What I ended up walking away with was far more than a phone. It was a little computer that has nearly constant access to the internet.

I ended up getting the HTC EVO on Sprint. The EVO runs the Android mobile operating system and does some pretty amazing stuff. As such, I wanted to touch on a couple of cool applications that I’ve been using. If you have an Android phone, you should use them too. Just pop over to the Android Market and search for the name.

• Twicca – This is the best Twitter app for Android, in my opinion. It is quick, customizable, and looks fantastic. Also, follow me on Twitter if you don’t already.
• Astro File Browser – I love this for 1) copying and moving files around my phone, mostly music and 2) it has a handy backup feature which will save copies of all your apps. If something happens to your phone, you don’t have to worry about searching the market and reinstalling everything. This app just takes care of it.
• Listen – This is a podcast manager by Google. It is still a little rough around the edges, but I love it thus far. I’ve never listened to podcasts before, but there is just so much interesting stuff out there.

I’ll be back with some more recommendations soon and some more in depth info on the EVO, including some screenshots of some of the great features and apps.

Eddie and the iPhone…

My friend and fellow technophile, Eddie, has a fantastic post over on his blog, Practically Efficient.

His feelings pretty much sum up my own. Apple has done some amazing things for mobile technology, but for me, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to jump full-on into the Apple ecosystem.

Check out this fantastic post in full.

Back from Exile…

As you may (or may not) have noticed, I’ve been absent from the blogging scene. There have been a couple of reasons for that. The excuses range from summer to running to kids to work. They aren’t good excuses, but they are there nonetheless.

What I do want to share is what I’ve been up to and what I’ve got loaded up for you.

• WordPress 3.0 – If you don’t know what WordPress is, don’t be too concerned. It is simply the behind the scenes stuff that takes all this information that I have a makes it all pretty for you to look at. A new version is out and I’m going to be upgrading soon. Hopefully it doesn’t wreck my site!
• Sprint HTC EVO – So I’ve been a staunch BlackBerry guy for years now. But for years, BlackBerry has been standing still while new mobile operating systems like Android and iPhone OS (now known as iOS) have been making huge leaps and bounds. The iPhone is firmly planted at AT&T so that is out of the question, but Sprint, my carrier of choice, recently got a major Android phone called the EVO. I’ll fill you in on all its amazingness soon.
• Friday Night Links – This has been the thing I’ve been missing most over the past month or two. I’ve got a bunch of great stuff that I’ve been saving but just couldn’t get put up because Friday nights have been busy, busy, busy.
• offcolortv.com – So this isn’t anything coming up but my Biggest Loser blog over there had a huge thing happen. Fan favorites Sunshine and Oatmeal ended up answering questions over there for everyone. It was pretty amazing to have them there to do that. On a secondary note, I’m going to be doing admin stuff for offcolortv.com, so that would include making improvements and upgrades as well as tweaking the look. I’m trying to figure out how to put each author’s picture in their post, so if you have any ideas, I would love to hear them.

That is about it for the moment, but expect a second post tonight about my low-tech obsession as of late.

Friday Night Links (4/23/2010)…

I’m going to tear down the four or fifth or twelfth wall (or whichever one we are on at this point) and let you in on a little secret: I don’t have to be present to hit the ‘publish’ button to send these posts into the wide open internet. Thus, I am actually typing this post up on Thursay night, but it will be published without my intervention at around 4pm EST on Friday. Crazy, I know, but it is totally true.

Alright, enough of these shenanigans, let’s get some links.

• Crazy Chess Story – Of course it SEEMS like an oxymoron, but this chess champ actually had an amazing journey trying to get from Frankfurt, Germany to Sofia, Bulgaria. When not watching Lord of the Rings: Super Extended Directors Cut edition, they were dodging countries requiring travel visas, getting pulled over, and avoiding some of the worst potholes in Eastern Europe. It’s an incredible story.
• Compound Butter – Next time you bring home a nice salmon fillet or spicing up some veggies, make it quick and tasty with some compound butter. Just add some spices, garlic, lemon, or a plethora of other flavors to butter and – BAM! – compound butter.
• Medical Toys – I am a sucker for a good gadget and I’m also a health nut, so when those two things cross paths, you can be sure I’m there. My two favorite items mentioned are the sleep monitoring alarm clock with the silly headband and the wifi scale. I bet you readers can’t wait until my scale starts posting the ups and downs of me standing on the scale. Yikes.
• You’re Doing It Wrong – Mrs. Digitante and I bring up those commercials where the person is trying to strain a pot of spaghetti, but the noodles all dump out in the sink until they get that handy-dandy pot with the lid that has holes in it. The terrible acting and mock frustration the “doing it wrong” people show is pure hilarity. Now you can watch a wonderful tribute to all those suffering souls – giant red X’s included. If you can’t see the video below, click right here.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/08xQLGWTSag&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b

TQT: Queue YouTube to a Specific Time…

Ever have a long YouTube video that you want to share with others, but the good part is at the end? Well here is a nice little fix for you.

Since I gave my iPad the boot last week, I thought it was only fitting to demonstrate this technique with a Blendtec video of an iPad getting bent in half, shoved in an industrial blender, and pulverized into a powder.

The link for the video usually looks like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl28d6tbko

If you click that link, you will end up watching entire 1 minute and 40 second clip. It’s very entertaining and you should definitely watch it.

If you want to get straight to the good stuff, you would want to start the video at the 55 second mark. You can easily have YouTube do that for you by adding the following to the end of the link:

#t=0m55s

You can modify the 0 and the 55 to whatever you want. The final link will then look like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl28d6tbko#t=0m55s

Bam! iPad demolished!

If you want to watch another cool video starring The Digitante In Action!, check out the video below. If it doesn’t show up, click here to watch it at the YouTube site.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/JC5Qyqy7Pyg&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b

Friday Night Links (4/16/2010)…

I’m teetering on the edge of a food coma after filling up on heavy Italian food at Buca di Beppo. Whatever! I’m still bringing you two food links tonight in the FNL. Get ready to be hungry.

• Make Your Own Sriracha – This is the sauce of the gods. Instead of being fiery hot just for the sake of being fiery hot, Sriracha sauce adds some fantastic garlic flavoring. If you want to tweak it even further you can add your own flavors. Personally, I’m thinking some sesame oil might be great.
• Cool Stuff – If that description sounds like it is generic and non-specific, then you obviously haven’t clicked on the link yet. I linked directly to the gadget section, but there are some amazing things in the other sections. How about these hotel rooms?
• Earthquake Notification – Live in a subduction zone? Not sure what subduction means? Well, if you live on the West Coast or along the Mississippi River, there’s a chance you are at risk of encountering an earthquake. The US Geological Survey actually has a text message or email notification service so you will know if an earthquake hits your area. It requires an email address, but you can actually have an email sent to your phone via text message by following the instructions at this link.
• Food Porn – Don’t let the name scare you: this link is safe for work. It is just ridiculously awesome looking (and tasting, I’m sure) food laid out in all its glory for you to lust over. On recommendation of my wife and regular Digitante commenter Jenny, we clicked through for about 15 minutes and our living room was filled with constant ‘Ooo’s and ‘Ahh’s. See? It’s sounding more and more like porn now, isn’t it. Do yourself a favor and click though the pictures. You won’t regret it.

iPad: Here and Back…

About a week and a half ago, I stood in line for about an hour and a half waiting for an iPad at the local Apple Store. I brought it home and Mrs. Digitante was very excited, as was I.

Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out and I’m going to share with you why. First though, let me tell you that this is my opinion of why it didn’t work for ME. However, it may fit your needs great and I already know of a number of people who have an iPad and love it and are spending many hundreds of dollars buying apps and accessories for it.

The Pros:

• The screen is amazing. You really haven’t ever seen a screen that is this crisp and pleasant to look at.
• It is super fast. Granted it can only run one application at a time, but I never had to wait for anything other than webpages to load.
• Simplicity is the name of the game. One button on the device, little icons on the screen, and minimal options to change are all Apple hallmarks. There really isn’t much thinking or learning involved.

The Cons:

• Lack of Flash video. Honestly, I didn’t think this would be a huge deal, but the problem is that it ruined my flow of work. I enjoyed reading Twitter on the iPad, but during a reading session, I would come across at least one or two videos that I wanted to watch, but wasn’t allowed to. This means that I had to mark the tweet as a favorite, get on my laptop later, and then watch the video. It just wasn’t convenient.
• Basic staples such as a file system are missing. I purchased an eBook in pdf format on my laptop and put it in my Dropbox because I knew there was a Dropbox app for the iPad. I was sorely disappointed when I found that I couldn’t just save the pdf to my iPad and open it with the default pdf program. Instead, I had to purchase an app that would allow me to access the files in my Dropbox app and open it in the pdf reading app. I only knew this because I know other techies that have had to do this. Otherwise, I would have been stuck. For all the simplicity Apple loves, this simple task was really complicated.
• The iPad costs $500. Over the last week and a half, I’ve tried to come up with $500 worth of usage scenarios and I just can’t do it. If this thing was $300, I wouldn’t have even thought twice about buying it, but $500 really makes me hesitate.

So after a couple of days of both me and Mrs. Digitante playing with it, I asked her what she thought. We were on exactly opposite ends of the spectrum but came to the same conclusion: it was more than she needed and it was less than I wanted so we decided to eat the $50 restocking fee and return it.

When I say “it was more than she needed” she was looking for an eReader like the Kindle. Having all the apps and other features weren’t appealing to her and really over complicated it for her. When I say “it was less than I wanted” I wanted to be able to pick up a device and have it do everything I required. Type a reply to a  Wordpress forum post? Nope, no text boxes were editable. Watch video linked in Twitter? Nope, sorry, Flash doesn’t work. Install any number of applications that I wanted? Nope, only what Apple approves through the App Store using their clandestine and inconsistent rules.

Will I miss it? Most likely not. It’s been sitting in our bedroom, unused, for the last three days. Normally I get all giddy and can’t put gadgets down, but this thing turned old hat very quick.

Did you buy an iPad? What was your opinion? Let me know what you think of the iPad, even if you don’t have one.

TQT: iPod charging…

Since Tuesday came and went without a post (actually, this entire week came and went without a post), I figured I’d try and squeeze in a Thursday Quick Tip. Let’s just say you are lucky there are two days that begin with the letter T.

Tonight’s tip refers to charging an iPod, but this advice is equally applicable to many of your electronic devices, especially your phone. The USB port on your computer can not only be used to transfer data to your mobile device, but it can also be used to charge your mobile device.

When I’m traveling, I like to do everything I can to not have to check a bag. This inevitably leads to me cutting back on as much stuff as possible. To do that, I generally take a USB cord and simply plug my cell phone or iPod into the USB port of my computer to charge. This saves me from having to take a cord with a big bulky plug with me.

Additionally, there has been a movement in the last year or so to standardize the charging ports for cellphones and other devices to use a connector called micro-USB. The beautiful thing about that is instead of taking a cord for your cellphone, a cord for your camera, a cord for your wife’s phone, etc, you will be able to just bring one cord and charge all your devices. Convenient!

Got your own tips on how to charge various devices or how to pack lighter for a trip? Let me know in the comments!

Friday Night Links (4/2/2010)…

Man, it is getting really tough to keep up here with everything I have going on. I’m not slowing down anytime soon though and actually my Tuesdays just opened up immensely. But who cares about Tuesday? What I care about is Good Friday Night Links!

• Crazy Airports – Ever thought about building an island that is 4 square miles in the middle of a harbor so you can have an airport? Why not? Everybody’s doing it. Everybody is also landing on the beach, driving their cars across the runway, and creating massive solar arrays to power their airport. Sounds like you have some catching up to do. Regardless, the pictures are pretty amazing and I highly recommend you check out the island airports on Google Maps satellite view. Here is one to get you started.
• Homemade Things That Should Not Be Homemade – If you know me, would it shock you if I said my brother and I have actually made very similar inventions in our lives? I’m sure it wouldn’t. But don’t let me yammer at you. You need to check out the pictures. My favorite: the scaffolding. Also, be on the look out for the thing. Digitante dollars to the person who finds it first and leaves a comment about it.
• Beet Hummus – My most popular posts in FNL has by far been the food postings. You’ll notice Jenny’s comments strewn about in each food post. Well, here is another one for you. I saw the color of that hummus and knew I had to have it. Gorgeous. Wonderful – now I’m hungry.
• Clothes Folding Robot – This robot is programmed to fold clothes, but he has never folded THESE particular clothes before. He analyzes the shape, size, which direction it hangs, and then folds it properly. Good luck trying that technique out on my dress shirt that sat at the bottom of a pile for a week. Even my iron on full blast can’t help that shirt. Here is a direct link in case you can’t see the video below.

  http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/gy5g33S0Gzo&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b

More iPod Loading Without iTunes…

I realize that last night TQT was missing but it will be back next week as my Tuesday night schedule should be easing up a bit.

A couple of weeks ago, I highlighted how to load up an iPod Shuffle without using iTunes because of some major issues I’ve had with iTunes in the past (read here and also here). This post will fill in the blanks for those of you using iPod versions other than the Shuffle. Unfortunately, this method does NOT work with iPhones and also requires you to sync your iPod with iTunes and load at least one song on there. I, personally, would recommend you do this on your friend’s computer rather than loading that piece of garbage on your computer. Now, off to the races.

The program we are going to be using is called Floola. Floola is a free side project by a helpful chap, so I would highly recommend donating if you like the product.

Start by downloading Floola here and be sure to extract the zip file to your iPod’s base directory. If you go to My Computer, you should see the C: drive and a couple other drives. On of them (E: on my computer) is the iPod. Double click it and you will see a couple of folders named Contacts, Calendars, Notes, and an see-through folder called iPod_Control. This is where you want to unzip your Floola folder to. Head over to the folder you extracted the files to and double click on Floola.exe.

The first task you need to do is choose which model of iPod you have. If you aren’t sure, you can visit Apple’s model identification guide. Floola will also give you some suggestions. It suggested that my iPod Nano 2G was either a 1G or a 2G (where G stands for generation). It also gives you some warnings and instructions, so be sure to read them through.

Once you hit save, you are pretty much home-free. At this point you can add tracks, delete tracks, manage photos stored on the device, and do pretty much everything else iTunes did.

A huge added bonus is that Floola is now saved on and runs from your iPod itself. That means if you visit anyone’s computer, regardless of whether they have iTunes or not, you will be able to update your music, photos, and podcasts using only the information on your iPod.

Have you tried any other alternatives to iTunes that worked for you? Found any hidden gems on Floola that cemented the deal for you? Share in the comments!