Dr. Horrible in 8-Bit
Posted By Jeff On April 9, 2010 @ 9:15 am
I don’t know what to say other than ‘Holy crap’ and ‘I want to play this game!’. A guy (or gal) going by the name DoctorOctoroc redid the first act of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. It’s NPH in Nintendo form, that’s totally and utterly badass! I don’t even want to get into how incredibly epic the soundtrack is. It makes me feel all warm and squishy inside. Watch it, love it, then go buy me the DVD off Amazon kthx.
[Via Mashable]
Personal Assistant: Makes good coffee [App]
Posted By Jeff On April 8, 2010 @ 9:50 am
Sorry to lie, this app doesn’t actually make you coffee. It does do everything else a good assistant does though. Today I’m talking about Pageonce‘s cross-platform Personal Assistant application.
Personal Assistant allows you to access your bank accounts, credit cards, bills, shopping wishlists, social networking sites,e-mail, travel schedule (and more!) through your one application.
I use mine currently for my checking account and credit card, as well as my internet and phone bills. For bank accounts, it shows your your balance and all your transactions. For credit cards, you can see your spending limit, how much of it you’ve used, your minimum needed payment as well as when that is due.
My Internet bill shows when it is due and how much. My monthly phone bill shows me when my payment is due, how much it’s for; as well as how many minutes, text and data I’ve used this month. My prepaid phone just shows the balance remaining and when it expires.
PageOnce also has an transactions section, which lets you see changes and updates at a glance. This is a nice thing to check daily, just to make sure nothing happened during the day that you didn’t authorize. Personal Assistant also monitors your bills for you, and send you out an e-mail a few days in advance as a ‘change that might interest you’. This serves a great purpose when you get an e-mail letting you know that your bill is due in 5 days, there is more chance of remembering to pay it.
Did I mention this is free? Well it is. There is a premium version which offers unlimited accounts (I believe free is 10) and they are working on allowing multiple updates daily as well. I’m tempted to buy the premium version just to support the developer because I love how simple and affective it is. Having all of my finances (or lack there of) right at my finger tips at all times makes me almost feel like an adult! Come to think of it, not so sure I like that.
- Pros:
- Free
- Has all the services I need
- Great interface
- Easy to set up
- Can Be Improved:
- Would like to see a widget
- Only updates once a day with the free version
Personal Assistant is available on all major mobile systems: Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry and iPhone.
Cubed Music Player [App]
Posted By Jeff On April 7, 2010 @ 9:03 am
Myself, like 99.9% of all Android users, are disappointed and honestly hate the lack of originality and horrible sorting in the default stock music player in Android 2.0. Well maybe not hate, but I wouldn’t say that I’d vote for it any any contests anytime soon. I want it to be not only functional, but pretty as well. Cubed ( “3″ ) does that and not only makes it look easy but actually makes using it easy. 
What Cubed (formerly known as Rock On) does is takes your entire library, downloads the Album covers for it and turns it into a giant…well cube. You can then spin in horizontally to pick the artist by letter, or flick it vertically to just let it spin through them all the albums. Tapping on the facing cube will list you the songs from that artist, on that album. It’s pretty sweet, has no lag while flicking and is fun to just spin the cube around.
This app features all the required functions: Next, back, random, repeat. It also throws in themes (effects to the cover art) and three different sized widgets that all show cover art. They also have a ‘concert’ app attached, though it doesn’t seem to work too well in my location.
- Pros:
- Better interface than stock app
- Album covers easily downloaded
- Fun to play around with
- Supports search
- Good Widgets
- Cons:
- Can’t spin cube from widget
- Did mess up on some of the album covers
- Auto-flip back to current song if you pause too long while browsing albums
I’ve yet to find something that can compare in quality, and I think that it holds a lot of promise as it progresses through it’s beta. For anybody who uses their music player on a regular basis, Cubed is my suggestion for your music app.
Review: Fan Boys [Movie]
Posted By Jeff On April 6, 2010 @ 9:35 am
Movie: Fan Boys (2008)
Genre: Comedy
Bored one night, I was surfing around looking for something good to watch and stumbled upon Fan Boys. This movie freaking a hilarious and I have no idea why. I also haven’t the faintest clue how I managed to miss this movie for over a year, it’s something I can see myself watching.
Short form summary is that 4 star wars fan boys / high school friends decide to take a road trip to the Skywalker Ranch to steal Star Wars: Episode 1 before it gets released in theaters. They do stupid shit along the way. This movie falls in the same category as Super Bad, Eurotrip, American Pie and anything good made by Kevin Smith: It’s funny just because it’s genuinely dumb and unrealistic, but you can see one of your friends doing it. A little spoiler for you all, Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes make a short cameo in it. That should be reason enough to go see it.
I don’t want to recap too much of this movie, as the plot line itself is pretty standard. Instead, I’m going to just give some point forms that I found awesome, which do include spoilers.
- The have a van with an R2D2 head on it, a light speed button and the Leia/Han painting on the side.
- They make fun of Jar Jar Binks
- Comment on naming their hands Princess Leia.
- Constantly make fun of Trekkies.
- Rush is one of the greatest bands of all time.
- William Shatner mother fucker!
This movie was great, but could have been better. I’ve watched it 3 times, and I think I’m done.
Final Rating: 7.5/10
Wrist Power [Gadget]
Posted By Jeff On April 5, 2010 @ 9:40 am
A few months ago (actually a year come to think of it) there was a new product that came out called Wrist power (or Wrist Band Portable Battery), a universal battery recharger that you wear on your wrist. Within 24 hours of me reading the article on Boing Boing, they were sold out. Last month, they came back in stock, and I’m sure I was first in line to get one.
To be honest, I had a hard time getting it from the post office, but I can’t regret the extra effort. Wrist power charges up using as micro USB to USB cord, takes about 4 hours to fully charge and holds a fair amount. I was able to charge my Motorola Milestone from 50% to 100% in just over an hour (this while I was using it with GPS turned on, so I’d say it gave it about an 80% charge). It was well worth the $27 bucks it cost me (including S&H).
The Wrist Power bracelet came with a Nintendo DS, PSP, mini USB, Ipod, a ‘Nokia plug’ and a ‘Samsung connector’ (no idea what it’s called). It connects using pin, so most recharger ends will work. I ended up having to pick up a Motorola car charger kit from The Source to get mine, works fine with the bracelet.
- Pros:
- Cheap price
- Charges quickly
- Holds a good amount of power
- Recharges device quickly
- Not that bulky
- Cons:
- ‘Universal’ didn’t have the micro USB connector I needed
- Strap has 2 snaps, but only 1 snap hole (so the 1st snap sticks out if you have small wists)
- Rubber grip on the outside tends to make taking off long sleeve shirts a hassle
- Fear of being Luke Skywalker’d if it blows up.
Overall, I like this product. It does what I wanted it to do, and does it pretty easily. I like the idea of knowing that when my phone dies because I’ve checked in to 20 places on Foursquare and watched 50 youtube videos I have a backup. Oh, and it makes me look cool…right?
You can buy it for as low as $22 CAD at ChinaVasion in either black or White.
Urban Spoon [App]
Posted By Jeff On March 31, 2010 @ 11:46 pm
On today’s menu, we’re featuring a lovely Urban Spoon with a side dish of multi-device support topped with a light glaze of amusement. It’s like Shake n Bake, without the Baking.
Instead of arguing about what to have for dinner, why not leave it to chance? Urban spoon provides you with a fun roulette that will tell you quick where, what and how much you’re going to pay to eat with just one quick wrist gesture. You pick the location, then give your phone a slight shake and it will randomly pick what kind of food you’re eating tonight and find a restaurant in that category. The price option is a big help too so you don’t end up buying a $70 steak with rent money (Which is awesome if you’re totally broke like me). When it finds the restaurant, it gives you info on where it is, the phone number, if it has delivery, and often some reviews.
My city currently only has 140 restaurants, which leave a TON of room for improvement. Given how many placed to eat there are around here, this app has almost inspired me to actually travel around my town to new places I haven’t been to before just so I can add some more restaurant onto the list. I’d advise you to do the same, it’s not only a good way to contribute, but this can prove to be a good marketing platform for local businesses.
Urban Spoon is available through their website or mobile site if you just want to do some browsing. You can get Urban Spoon’s addictive little app on Android (2.0+), iPhone, or Blackberry.
Gowalla & Foursquare: LBS smackdown [Apps]
Posted By Jeff On March 31, 2010 @ 12:45 am
Everybody loves doing something else while doing something boring. At least I do. Lately, this is where Location Based Services (LBS) are filling my void. My current loves are Gowalla and Foursquare.
Both of these services allow you to travel around town, and using your GPS you can ‘check in’ where ever you are. I honestly can not figure out why it’s so cool, since nobody actually is looking up where I am, but it’s fun to think that somebody can. 
What intrigues me is that it’s been made into a game in a few different ways. For instance, checking in at the mall, then the coffee place, then at work; I will get 3 points for having 3 check-ins plus a bonus if it is the first time checking in to that location. You can also get ‘badges’ for accomplishing various tasks or at random. They don’t do anything, but you can show them off to your friends.
An added feature is ‘mayorships’. If you’ve checked into a certain place more than anybody else, you become the mayor. In this sense, when somebody else checks in to that place, they see that you’re the mayor. You can also see how many people have been at each place, and who is there now.
What is putting Gowalla above Foursquare in my mind right now is graphics and items. Foursquare is mainly text, where as Gowalla has nice pictures beside it and actually requires you to be within range of the location to check in. Once checked in on Gowalla, you can also pick up items (if there are anythere) or drop an item. When you take one, you need to drop one. The next person that checks in, can then choose to take your dropped item if they want. It’s a fun way to feel connected to those who you don’t know, as it shows the history of an item when you look at it.
I would love to see these become more popular, and it seems to be here in Kingston. I’d love to see 3 of my coworkers checked in at work, to feel connected in suffering. I’m just waiting for a beta invite to Check.In, where I can check-in on both applications at the same time.
Gowalla is available on Android, iPhone, Palm OS (I’m shocked too) and mobile site for those out of the loops.
Foursquare is available for Android, Iphone and blackberry.
Do you use LBS? If so, what ones do you like using, or why not?
.
Hoccer [App]
Posted By Jeff On March 30, 2010 @ 1:23 am
Today’s awesome app is named Hoccer. It is available for both Android devices, as well as iPhones, and may be the coolest program of all time.
Doesn’t having to transfer stuff to people suck? I hate having to e-mail something just to attach a picture, or share a song. This is where Hoccer jumps in. With Hoccer, you just need two phones somewhere around each other within 100 feet and you can actually drag it off your phone, on to their phone or throw it through the air. Easy as that, no kidding.
Hoccer uses location based file sharing. In short: You throw it, server catches it. When somebody that is in the same area as you tries to catch it, the server checks recent throws. Theoretically, this means that multiple people can catch one throw if they time it right. That I’d love to see.
A buddy of mine (also using android) and I did this on the bus. We had some issues with actual ‘hoccing’ (it could be because we were on a moving bus at the time) but ‘sweeping’ worked easily enough and he got the .apk file no problem.
I’m going to have to keep playing around with this when I have free time, I would love to throw files around all willy-nilly. Not sure how often I’d use this, but god damn if it isn’t totally bad ass to show off.
Address Book by Asurion [Android]
Posted By Jeff On March 29, 2010 @ 9:23 am
As promised, let’s do a week full of awesome and helpful Android applications.
First off, is Address Book by Asurion. This application is just what it says it is: An address book. As much as I love Android, the contact list can use a bit of a touch up.
Address Book has a beautiful user interface (it’s blue) and gives more options than the contact list. To be specific: Social networking combination. By installing Address Book as well as the ‘MixIns’ that you want, you can sync your Google contacts with your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Amazon friends. I love being able to keep everything in one spot.
The Navigation is easy. You have a Dialer, History, Contacts, and Favorites button at the bottom. History will show you all calls, tweets, FB updates, and texts from all contacts in chronological order. Contacts are alphabetical. On the right of everybody’s name is a summary of which networks you have for that person. Favorites are the people you talk to the most, and is separated by social networks. Tapping on a contact’s name, you get the options to see their feeds, info and calls (see image).
I quite honestly love this application, it’s exactly what I wanted. I attempted to find a way to get MotoBlur onto this Milestone, but not so worried anymore. I would suggest anybody using Android 1.6 or higher give it a try.
Address Book By Asurion
Android 1.6: 
Android 2+: 
What do you use for keeping in touch?
Motorola Milestone Follow up
Posted By Jeff On March 28, 2010 @ 2:30 am
Check out my first impressions of the Telus Motorola Milestone.
It’s been about a month or so since getting the Milestone, and it’s treating me pretty well still. I plan on doing some posts about some applications I have going in the upcoming week hopefully, so keep an eye out.
Since the previous posts, some things have changed:
1) The Milestone has been rooted (somewhat). The bootloader is still locked, but root/super user access is available. Hopefully with the release of 2.1 in the near future it will change to a full root. For instructions on how to root your telus milestone, click the link.
2) Paid apps are now available in Canada. No word yet on when Canadian developers will be able to sell their apps, but that can be expected. No more need to pirate them, makes me feel like less of a cheapskate.
3) Hardware is still holding up. I had a rough patch after unlocking it and updating it to support live wallpapers when I installed Launcher 2. I’ve changed to Helix, and since had no lag what-so-ever. Would highly recommend it.
4) CTIA makes me want an HTC EVO when Sprint releases it. Don’t judge me!
Summary: My phone is still the best compared to those iPhonies and Blackberry newbs I know, so I’m happy.
On an unrelated note, IRBlogging now has a Facebook Page and it’s own Twitter page. We’ll be posting quick updates, surveys and (if it hits me) contests exclusively for those followers. We’d be much obliged for your support.
That’s it, Have a good Sunday.
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