I really don’t understand this device.  Someone at Hijakker took a $20 16GB USB drive and added an open source bootable version of Xubuntu and then they sell it for $60.  Their marketing then states “Have your own portable Windows on a USB Flash Drive!”, but they forget to mention that you will have to supply your own full Windows operating system installation media to install on the USB drive.  I’ve been playing with it for a while, so this is my take.

Here’s what the good folks at Hijakker have to say about the device:

► Have your own portable Windows on a USB Flash Drive!
► Includes Linux with many pre-installed tools.
► Great for the road warrior!
► Use it for private web browsing that leaves no trace on the host PC.
► A handy tool for Help Desk folks for troubleshooting  and system recovery – just boot it up and access the host PC’s hard drive.
► Business Continuity experts can use to borrow / repurpose a PC and get back to their system s quickly during an emergency.
► Comes in eco-friendly packaging to minimize the plastic used.

The thumb drive does have an end cap and comes wrapped in an “oragami” envelope.  The envelope doubles as the instructions for using the Hijakker.

To use the Hijakker you’ll first have to find a PC that allows booting from a USB device.  Two of my 3 PCs, which are Dells, have that option, but the Toshiba Laptop doesn’t.  That’s unfortunate because I was hoping to repurpose the Toshiba. Having only 1 GB of memory it was running real slow under XP and I couldn’t rebuild it because my installation disks were corrupted.  In the end I downloaded a copy of open sourced Ubuntu and used it instead.

Upon boot up the above screen appears.  If this looks suspiciously like Ubuntu, that’s because it is.  Actually, it’s a pared down version of Ubuntu (Xubuntu) meant for hardware challenged systems and laptops.  It’s fully functional and is available free of charge on the web.  The only difference in the Hijakker version is their logo on the desktop screen.

The main reason I was interested in this device was the ability to run Windows from a thumb drive independently from the PC.  This can be done using an open source application called Virtualbox OSE which is preinstalled on the Hijakker.  The application is also available  free on the web.  Virtualbox will allow you to run Windows or most other OSes on the thumb drive within Hijakker/Xubuntu.  I did not test this feature out because I didn’t have a full installation package for Windows or any other OS for that matter.  I’ll take their word for it that it works.

When I attempted to connect to the web on my laptop, I had no connection because of a missing wi-fi driver.  After playing around for a bit, a window popped up saying it was downloading the required driver for my wi-fi chip.  This was interesting because I wasn’t hooked to the net, nevertheless somehow the driver was installed and I was on the web.

There’s nothing earth shattering about the Hijakker implementation.  People with a little Linux knowledge can purchase their own thumb drive and go to Pendrivelinux.com to install Xubuntu.   If you’d rather not, you can pay the premium and purchase the Hijakker.  Personally, I use a thumb drive with Portableapps.com software that allows me to bring my data and applications with me on the road.  It is not bootable like the Hijakker and needs admin privileges to run, but is much easier to use.

Finally,  I’m not too impressed the product presentation.  The packaging is tacky and they don’t seem to spend much on QC.  In the first paragraph of the getting started page they list their url incorrectly (www.hijacker.com).  The uses they list for the device are valid, but could just as easily be done without the device.

Filed in categories: Miscellaneous, Reviews

Tagged: Software, Ubuntu, USB

Hijakker bootable USB Drive with Xubuntu Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 13, 2011 at 11:00 am.

The black and white, dead-truth of the matter is, I am a horrible typist. This is not ideal for my day job or writing reviews here at The-Gadgeteer.com. It is my own fault, during high school I did everything I could to get out of typing class. I was in band, shop, PE and even took extra math and science to get out of typing. I was so bad, in college I used to bribe my girlfriends with dinner out on the town if they would type my papers for me, thus saving me hours/days of effort.

In the interim, I hoped for computer and software technologies to evolve to the point of being able to talk and have my speech transcribed into written word.  It has taken a while, but those times are here (and some would argue that they have been for a while) for both the Windows and Mac users alike. From everything I have read, Nuance is the industry leader in the technology. For Mac users, their Dragon Dictate software is really the best (and potentially only) option at this point.

I have debated for years on when to give this type of technology a try, always worried that whatever software I tried would fall short of my expectations. What/who convinced me to make the leap was Dan Cohen, a fellow writer/reviewer over @ the GearDiary.com. He has written several very positive commentaries/reviews on Dragon Dictate for Mac. So, with their recent release of version 2.5, Nuance sent me a copy of the software to give it a go.

As with most applications today, installing Dragon Dictate for Mac was extremely easy. The first step is to load the software onto your hard drive, followed by the vocabulary/grammar database. Once that is accomplished, you are almost ready to start talking to your computer.

With the version of Dragon Dictate I received, Nuance included a Plantronics USB microphone for vocal input. Nuance also has a download only and Bluetooth microphone options as well. If you prefer to go wireless, there are not many (blessed) options available. The Plantronics Calisto bluetooth headset is currently the sole wireless option Nuance suggests. I find this disappointing. I was hoping that my Plantronics 925 or 975 would be compatible, since they are so much more compact and transportable than either the wired or Calisto headsets. That said, just recently, Nuance has released an iPhone app which gives you another, potentially more convenient wireless input option; allowing you to use your smartphone as a microphone/input device via a WiFi network.

After selecting an input device, you have to read to the software/your computer, allowing it to learn how you speak/talk. This process takes anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes and has to be done for each input method creating a different profile for each (USB mic, bluetooth headset, iPhone, etc). The software provides you approximately a dozen passages of text that you read to each input device/profile. This ‘learning process’ increases the word/transcription accuracy of the software.

I have found the provided USB microphone is the most accurate of the three input methods/devices I tried: USB mic, MBAir’s internal mic, and iPhone. I have to speak slower than normal speech but that just gives me more time to think about what I want to say. The iPhone microphone app definitely lags since it is bouncing through your WiFi bubble and back to your computer. While the lag is noticeable, it is not too irritating or painful. I have tested Dragon Dictate with a variety of software that allow text input: Microsoft Office 2011 (Word and Outlook), Pages, WordPress, Lotus Notes, etc.  Dragon works well with them all.

Since I told him about this type of technology, the Gadgeteer Kid has been very motivated to try it out. His hope is that, at least at home, he will never have to type again. He dislikes typing about as much as I do. He did a great job reading the profile screens, actually better than I did. It will be very interesting to see how much he likes using the software now that he finally has it at his disposal.

Having never done anything like this before, sitting in a quiet room talking to yourself/your computer does take a bit of getting used to. A majority of the time, I can be watching a show/movie or listening to music while writing/typing reviews. However, I have found that using Dragon Dictate takes a few more braincells to get what I am thinking from my head, out my mouth and into my computer. At least for me, I cannot multitask while using this application. That said, this personal limitation may change with practice and continued use.

Not only do you have to think and speak at the same time but have to add/speak/manage all of the punctuation as well. Something most of us do without thinking about while typing but speaking it does take getting use to. It goes something like, ‘tech-ramblings COMMA more tech-ramblings PERIOD Followed by even more tech-talk PERIOD NEXT LINE/PARAGRAPH’. At the beginning, I over emphasized saying/enunciating the punctuation but have mellowed my technique with time and practice.

The software is not perfect and does make errors. Depending on how on the ball I am thinking and clearly I am speaking, its accuracy is very good….definitely 90+ percent. But when there are misunderstandings between your brain and the software, you can say ‘DELETE LAST or THAT’ or if you did not like a sentence you can say ‘DELETE LAST SENTENCE’. I found most of the basic editing of just spoken text could be tweaked via the application. That said, I found more wholesale changes or formatting easier to take care of using the trackpad/mouse and keyboard. It was more effective and time efficient than using Dragon.

The software works well enough with a moderate amount of background noise but I believe that is (somewhat) dependent on the input method being used. But personally, I preferred complete silence while speaking/dictating into the software. I doubt I would ever use Dragon Dictate with others in the room (….too self-conscience) or music/television playing in the background, its just too distracting.

I have written several reviews now with Dragon Dictate and all has gone well. There’s little doubt in my mind that I will continue to use the software in the future, for writing reviews and my day job. I do admit, for the reviews I have done with Dragon Dictate, I only used the software for approximately 80% of the text input. I am betting that percentage goes up with time and practice. Overall, I enjoy using the software and talking to my computer over the drudgery of typing my opinions and thoughts. So, for you fellow Mac-owning, typing–challenged individuals out there, I recommend considering Dragon Dictate as an alternative to the typical slow and painful clicking of the keys.

Filed in categories: Reviews

Tagged: Computer Software, Software

Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.5 Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 1, 2011 at 5:38 pm.

Several years ago Avid Technology bought Pinnacle Systems, in their attempt to grab some of the consumer level video market.  Avid is known the world over for their professional level products for video editing, so I was excited at the chance to review their latest product, Avid Studio.  Almost a year ago on this website, I reviewed Pinnacle Studio 14 MovieBox Ultimate, and it was generally a good review.  Pinnacle has always had solid performance at a good price for consumer level editors.  But for a little bit more cash, would I be willing to jump up to Avid Studio?  Let’s find out!

Having been a long-time Pinnacle user, it didn’t take me long to get used to the Avid Studio interface.  While not exactly the same, there are some similarities in the location of buttons and general layout of the screen.  My reaction when I opened the program for the first time was ‘wow, there is a lot going on here.’  But compared to Adobe Premier Pro, this program is way easier to get up and running.  But maybe that isn’t a fair comparison to make because it seems to me that Avid Studio sits between the likes of Pinnacle Studio and Adobe Premier Pro.  In pricing that is certainly true, and I think in terms of features and power that is also true. Because of that, I believe I am safe to say that Avid Studio is a prosumer package.

There are tabs across the top that allow you to quickly flip back and forth between importing, the library, editing your movie, editing your DVD menus, and exporting.  The layout of the program (seen in the first screenshot above) while you are editing your movie is similar to other programs.  The video preview area is in the upper right, your collection of media for your project is in the upper left (which is a mini-view of your library), and the timeline is across the bottom.

The import tab is easy to understand and use. You can scan your computer to automatically grab media from all over your harddrive, you can import from your DVD/Blueray drive in your pc, you can capture video and stills from your webcam, connect a digital camera or import converter box, and of course you can individually grab files from the harddrive, although you can do that in the library so I don’t really see the point of having that option in the import screen.  Something neat is that you can capture a stop-frame animation using your webcam, at either 8 or 12 fps. This was pretty cool because it leaves a halo-effect on the screen to help you line up your still frames. Here is a screenshot:

I will go on the record to say that the Library tab (screenshot below)  is awesome! I am a very organized person in just about every aspect of my life, and the Library tab is a dream come true for me. Just about every video editor has a small area/panel on the screen to organize your photos, videos, music, etc, and Avid Studio has that as I mentioned (the mini-library).  But the Library tab is a full screen way to view all your media in your project.  It’s just fantastic.  You can even set ‘watch’ folders for the library and any new content that is added to the ‘watch’ folder on your harddrive will automatically be added to your library.

You can preview media in the library by clicking the triangle play button at the bottom of the media item.  Very nice touch!  One of the things I do on a daily basis is graphics editing, so I have been a Photoshop user for over a decade.  But I must admit that providing you a way to quickly edit any media in your Library is pretty darn neat.  For example, if you want to adjust the brightness of a picture, change the contrast, remove the yellow hue, fix the red eye, etc, you can do that right there in the Library without having to hop over to Photoshop to do it. Very nice.  I will be honest and say that occasionally I experienced some lag in editing the photos.  A time or two I had to wonder if the program had locked up, but after 5 seconds or so everything was fine.  I am willing to overlook that for the benefit of having the tool there, but it did annoy me just a little.

The timeline has unlimited tracks available to you, and you can place any type of media on any of the tracks.  So you can have titles, audio clips, video clips, and images all on the same track if you want.  You simply layer your timeline tracks based on the type of effect you want.  As expected, you can lock the tracks to prevent any changes happening to them, and adding a new track is as simple as right-clicking.  Audio editing tools are available for each track by clicking the audio mixer button above the timeline which slides out an audio panel beside each track.

If you don’t want to spend hours of your time editing a movie, then you can let the program do it for you by using the SmartSlide and SmartMovie features in the Library.  Just tell it which pictures, video and music you want to use, and it creates the whole project for you.  You can also edit the movie afterwards if you don’t like what Avid created for you.  For example, I used SmartSlide and it told me the optimum number of pictures that I needed to use based on the music that I chose.  My pride tells me that I could have done a better job at it, but the end result wasn’t bad. To access either of these, go to your library and the buttons are in the middle at the bottom.

The start-up speed of the program was not bad compared to Adobe Premier Elements and Pinnacle Studio, which I have used for years.  Also, the help files and video tutorials on Avid’s website are also superior to what is available for Pinnacle and Premier Elements.  I must also mention a feature that I have not seen in any other video editor that I can recall.  I was looking at the bottom of the timeline for a scroll-bar to scroll my timeline.  It wasn’t there.  At the very bottom of the program window is what I am going to call the Zoom Slider/Timeline Navigator.  Here is a screenshot:

It allows you to zoom in and out of the timeline by dragging the ends of that orange box, as well as navigate along the timeline by dragging it left and right, instead of having a scroll-bar to deal with.  I guess you have to just use it to understand, but all I can say is that I like it, alot. And it is especially useful when working with a large project that is quite long.  Double-click it and it zooms your timeline to fit the window.  If you are a Pinnacle user then you will find that you can still zoom the timeline like you have always done… use your mouse to grab the ruler above the timeline and drag it left and right.

When I first starting using Avid Studio, I wasn’t too keen on the way that transitions are implemented.  In most other video programs when you drop a transition between clips, it puts highlights on portions of each clip to visually show you that a transition is in place.  The screenshot below is from Pinnacle to show you what I mean.

In Avid Studio you basically grab the top corner of a clip and pull it down, sort of like grabbing the page of a book and folding down the corner to ‘dog ear’ it, so to speak.  This drove me crazy because I simply wasn’t used to it.  But after using it for awhile now, I can say that it makes alot of sense.  Visually, it makes it much easier looking at the timeline and seeing all your transitions.  Well done Avid.  I haven’t seen this implemented like this before.  Here is a screenshot of the transitions in Avid Studio:

I was successful exporting in various formats.  You can see from the screenshot below that there are a large number of choices for output formats, as you would expect in a product of this level.  I was also able to successfully burn a DVD and use some of the built-in menus and montage themes.  I will say that the time it took to burn the DVD seemed a little slow to me, and I would even go so far as to say that it might have even been slower than Adobe Premier Elements, which to me is slow.  I was also able to upload directly to Youtube without any hiccups.  I don’t own a Blueray player or drive, so I couldn’t test that.

Lest I be accused of drinking the Avid Koolaid, let me say it wasn’t all a bowl of cherries.  It’s great that there is a Youtube upload in the Export tab, but why is there no Facebook upload?  Even Pinnacle Studio has Youtube and Yahoo Video upload.  Avid Studio only has Youtube upload.  Very disappointing.  Not even a Vimeo upload.  This must be fixed.  Also, I found that this program could be a bit overwhelming for a novice video creator.  It isn’t nearly as simple to use as iMovie, and it is even a bit more complicated than Pinnacle.

For example, adjusting the audio properties of clips can be confusing at first.  The ‘rubber band’ audio line on each clip is similar to Pinnacle and Premier Elements, so if you have seen that then you know how to use it.  But using the pop-out audio mixer tool on the timeline wasn’t intuitive to me.  It is just more complicated than editing audio in other programs I have used.  You could argue that with a more complex program comes more complexity, and you would be right.  And creating a title threw me for a loop at first. I think it is a little too complex for a novice to figure it out.  Opening up the title editing panel exposes you to a unbelievably powerful title editor, complete with its own timeline, layers, motion effects, and more. Just trying to figure out how to change features of the text in your title is too complicated in my view. Everything seems to be hidden under drop-downs and plus symbols. Again, too complicated I think for the novice. Now that I have figured it out, I can see the power you have at your fingertips, but the novice is gonna freak out just trying to add a simple title.

To wrap-up, let me mention in a bulleted fashion some of the little pleasant surprises that I discovered while using this program:

• In the mini view of the library while editing your movie you can use a zoom slider to change the size of the thumbnails to see smaller or larger thumbnails.
• You can customize the mini library with tabs for whatever items you want to see… newly imported media, sound effects, transitions, custom collections, etc. I like customization.
• In the capture window you can set a specified time that you want to capture and then walk away. It will stop capturing when it has captured the specified amount of time.
• When you delete a piece of media from the library you can decide to just delete it from the library or actually from the harddrive.
• If you start a project in 4:3 aspect ratio and then realize at some point that your footage is actually in widescreen format, you better hope you aren’t using Adobe Premier Elements because you’ll have to create your project from scrach and start over.  However, with Avid there is a button above the timeline that allows you to change those settings with a few clicks. Very nice!

So did Avid win me over despite the higher price?  Yep, it did.

To me, the icing on the cake boils down to 2 things.  First, the sound & video effects and transitions (Hollywood FX, Creative Pack, Red Giant Plugins, etc) that come with Avid Studio are great.  And those things can turn a so-so video into a great video and make the author look good with little effort.  When I first started looking through all the effects, transitions, sound effects, etc, that came with the program it took me forever because there were so many.  I wasn’t expecting that, so it truly was a nice surprise. Having options like this is great because you don’t want to get in the rut of using the same transitions/effects over and over.

Secondly, the Library with its organization and editing features is the best I’ve seen.  I can’t emphasize that enough.  If you love to be organized, you are gonna love this. You can tag your media items to make them easy to find and then use the Library search feature so you can search your pictures, videos, transitions, effects, etc.

Right now, even at the premium price and despite some of the complaints I had, I like Avid Studio better than Pinnacle Studio or Adobe Premier Elements and highly recommend it.  If you are a novice video editor would Avid Studio be the best program for you?  I tend to think the answer to that is no.  I have used video programs for years and I think this program would be great for those of you who want to graduate from the entry-level consumer video editor but you don’t want to make the jump to something like Adobe Premier Pro or Sony Vegas Pro. If you can’t afford it, then Pinnacle Studio will do just fine, but you won’t be disappointed with Avid Studio. I have always believed in paying for quality, and Avid fits that bill.

UPDATE (6/24/11):  A patch has been released for this product.  Grab it here:  http://bit.ly/jemGvM

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, Reviews

Tagged: A/V, Software, Video

Avid Studio Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 11, 2011 at 11:30 am.

DYMO is known as the business card scanning company. Their CardScan App for the iPhone brings this capability to the iPhone, at least for those in the United States. I put the product through its paces on some real and sample business cards, and overall was very pleased with the results.

The CardScan App installs via the App Store. It has a clean and consistent iOS interface. It launches into a view that shows all existing cards, with the option to capture a new card, select a photo from the camera roll, or Edit (really just delete) a scan:

Capture Flow

If you’re like me, after a meeting you too will have a hand-full of business cards that you should enter into your contacts, but probably never quite get around to doing. With CardScan, just spread them out and start snapping away. After you shoot a photo, with or without flash if you need it, CardScan shows you the shot. You can retake it, or process the card. Processing adds the image to the list, and starts transmitting it to DYNO for recognition:

You don’t need to wait, you can just tap the camera icon and start working on your next card. The shot above shows that one card’s being recognized while another is being uploaded.

Tapping any card that is “ready for review” will give you a chance to make any edits to fix recognition errors, or add additional notes not on the card, and then to save the data to Contacts:

Tapping any recognized element’s detail arrow brings up an editable field, keyboard, and the zoomed in image from the card photograph that was used for the data.

Once you’ve got the information the way you like it, tapping “Send to Contacts” makes a new contact with the data. The card remains in CardScan as well, until you choose to delete it.

Recognition Success Rate

The usefulness of any Business Card Scanner is dependent on its ability to not only recognize text accurately, but also to parse out where the bits of text on the card belong in the contact data record.

If you’re primarily dealing with standard business layout cards, then CardScan will be very successful at not only recognizing, but also correctly identifying what bits go where in a contact record. If, however, you deal with artists, graphics designers, or anyone else who feels compelled to have a card that’s hard for a human to read, let alone a computer, you might not get much help from CardScan. In my samples it recognized almost every card except the one that was filled with tiny, fancy fonts over logos and images, using a multitude of colors. Even when it does fail, you at least have a photo of the card you’re likely to lose on the plane ride home.

Final Thoughts

Keep in mind that CardScan sends the image of each card to DYMO’s servers to be recognized. This means you’ll incur some data usage (unless you’re on WiFi) for each card – about the same as posting an image to a social networking site. Also, it means that card data is going to be sent over the air, and also exist for a time at DYMO. I didn’t see a privacy policy anywhere on the App, but I expect they don’t intentionally keep any of that data.

Even with that minor concern, this is a very useful App for anyone who regularly receives business cards, and manually types them in. You can quickly snap photos of cards, and whenever it’s convenient review them and add the information to your contacts.

Filed in categories: iPhone, iPad, iPod related, Reviews

Tagged: Business, Contacts, iPhone, Software

DYMO CardScan Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 2, 2010 at 8:43 pm.

Heart Wizard software comes with ear/finger clip for monitoring and CD to download software. It's a very easy install and ready to use in a short time.

In this society of diets, exercise programs, macrobiotics, probiotics and even a First Lady offering her opinions on the nationwide struggle with obesity, Advanced Wellness Solutions (AWS) has taken this nation’s health concerns a step further.  Heart Wizard (http://www.heartwizard.com) is an online wellness tracking service that is designed to spotlight health trends in the user’s body system.   Trends such as speed of aging or biological age vs chronological age, stress and fitness are examined using a prognostic indicator called Heart Rate Variability Analysis or HRV.  HRV is a design of computer algorithms that assess the user’s health profile seemingly to uncover any possible anomalies that the user would use for health screenings and provide information to one’s health care provider to head off possible problems.  By using HRV and the Health Wizard system, the user can assess their fitness levels, cardiac condition, stress factors and energy levels.

All of this is completed by plugging the sensor cord into the USB port of your computer and attaching the sensor to a finger or an ear lobe and selecting one of the tests to complete.  Once you load the program on to  your computer, you fill in your profile.  Then you click ok and select your evaluations.

There are three categories of tests to choose from: Health Assessment, Fitness Assessment and Stress Management.  From there, there are several tests to run.  Under Health Assessment, you can run a Biological Age Test which is designed to tell you what your body’s True Age is as opposed to your body’s Chronological Age.  The Health Snapshot is a test designed to evaluate your body’s state of self regulation and energy and fatigue level

I ran the Health Snapshot on several different days.  I also ran the test on two different information parameters.  On the first tests, I listed my body type as “normal” in the profile.  My body type should have been listed as “obese”.  I’m kinda fat.  I have no problem admitting I need to lose weight.  The profile doesn’t ask for your weight, it merely asks you to be honest about your body type.  You can choose from Athletic, Normal, Overweight or Obese.  My doctor’s assessment based on my height and weight put me in the Obese category.

Advanced Wellness Systems Heart Wizard Assessment Snapshot

Obese with a normal blood pressure. (Not that I’m defensive or anything).  I’d like to say that I’m athletic.  God knows, from morning til night, I’m chasing after six animals (we are foster parents for unwanted dogs) yard work, housework, renovating a 110 year old historic home, managing concessions for the home games for a local semi pro football team as well as my own popcorn business.  I eat fruits and vegetables, I stay away from fried foods and red meat ( I’ll admit to chicken fried rice though), I eschew  fast food,  I buy “over 40″ butter, (anyone who’s over 40 years old knows exactly what I’m talking about), I can take a flight of stairs and not be winded but my doctor and pants size say I need dump enough weight that would, roughly, equal either Justin Beiber or one of the Jonas Brothers.   I had (honestly, I did) thought I set my body type category to “obese” when I ran the Health Snapshot.  I had set it to ‘normal’.   My Snapshots kept reporting that my body’s regulatory function was out of balance.  And then I took the Bio Age test and got another shock.  It reported my age to be five years older than I actually am.  For a woman, that’s insulting. A childhood friend took the Biological Age Test as well.  She’s six months younger but her age was reported to be three years younger.

Biological Age Test Results

My Stress Management tests weren’t any better.  But I am convinced that this has more to do with the test conditions than anything else.  For each test you run, you need five uninterrupted minutes.   That doesn’t sound like a lot until you actually sit down to perform it.  I figured it would be a snap, no problem.  I don’t have children.  Just two dogs, two cats, two foster dogs and a husband.  Good luck with the whole Five Uninterrupted Minutes thing.  Small wonder my stress results came back less than stellar.  I had attempted the test no less than five times.  Cell phone rings, house phone rings, dogs bark at the mail lady, husband comes downstairs to ask a question (he works from home).  I was ready to clobber someone!

Stress Sweeper Test Results

Seriously,  if you attempt these tests, clear it with both houses of Congress.  Tell your family, tell your neighbors, skywrite it or you’re not going to get through it without an interruption. I never realized just how difficult it was to get five entire uninterrupted minutes and this will show on the test results!  Don’t lie about your body type either.  Be honest.  Your test results will be skewed if you tell the system one thing but it evaluates something else.

When I set the profile to the proper body type, my Health Snapshot reported back that my inner balance was maintained where previously it had been out of balance.  It also reported that my overall regulatory function is below normal range.  The test reports that this result could be due to accelerated aging (I might be fat but I do not smoke or drink or tan), physical or mental fatigue (not out in left field), chronic stress, or possibly the presence of a chronic health condition that could be associated with a depressed immune system.

The fact that these tests report results that indicate that I’m not exactly turning cartwheels is hardly surprising.  I have a lot of irons in the fire, my days are full and I share the roadways with Indiana drivers.  If there was ever a Stress Management test result that I would not like to see, it would be the clown in the Dodge Charger who just HAD to cut me off in traffic only to meet me at the next red light.

I’ll admit complete skepticism when I received the software and started reading through the instructions and began taking the tests.  But when it came to the stress management and putting together my usual schedule, my age, and my weight, it really does begin to make sense.   I believe I am using these tests in the most elementary,  “Scratch the Surface” level and it’s honestly enough to send me to my doctor to get his opinion. Which is what I intend to do and this review will be updated with that conversation.

At $239.00, you need to be serious about your health.   This is a pricey program but there isn’t much in the  Good Health environment today that isn’t pricey.  Still, being a woman over the age of 40 who wants to continue to live a healthy life with her husband, this isn’t a bad piece of software to have around.   I still want to know what my doctor thinks about all of this and hear his ideas on how I can use this program more effectively.

Filed in categories: Health Related Gadgets, Reviews

Tagged: Health, Software

Heart Wizard Software Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 29, 2010 at 2:51 pm.

The latest offering from Pinnacle Systems is Pinnacle Studio 14 MovieBox Ultimate, and there are some new goodies under the hood for those of you who are long-time Pinnacle users.  I started using Pinnacle video software about 6 years ago and still stand by their products as good entry-level consumer video editors.   There is alot to love in version 14, but it isn’t all good news.  Is version 14 worth it enough to make you jump at the new version?  Let’s go see…

Let me start by talking about what comes in the box with this version.  This is the Pinnacle Studio MovieBox Ultimate edition, which means it comes with a converter device that you can use to attach to your computer and connect to other devices such as cameras, VCRs, etc.  I have used Pinnacle converter devices for years and this one performed good.  It recognized anything I connected to it and the software recognized the devices just fine.  No complaints in that department.  My only gripe is that in the past the converter devices that I have received as part of the Pinnacle products were much ‘beefier’ and made of finer materials.  This converter box is ‘plastic-y’, whereas the converter box I have used for years from Pinnacle is made of brushed metal.  It just feels ‘quality’, whereas this one feels ‘cheap’.  A sign of the times I guess.   Time will tell how it holds up.  Also in the box is a quick-start guide, some software on CD, a USB cable, a Firewire cable, and a green screen for doing green screen work.  Here are some pictures of what came in the box:

Pinnacle has always built ease-of-use into their products.  This is what makes Pinnacle such a joy to use.  The interface is simple, and it just makes sense.  You have 3 steps to making a video and each is represented by a tab across the top…. 1. import, 2. edit, and 3. make movie.  I am not trying to say that the interface has been completely revamped, but it does look cleaner in this version than previous versions.  They streamlined everything it appears to me, and it just looks more modern, which is refreshing.

Anything you want to use in your video is represented by a row of icons down the left side of the screen:  (starting from the top)… video, transitions, montages, titles, photos, menus, sound effects, and music.  You click on each icon and you see the available items you have in each category.  For example, you click on the Photos icon and see the pictures you have chosen for your project.  If you haven’t chosen any, then you click a little folder icon and go choose which folder contains your pictures.  Easy as pie.

There is a preview area in the upper right corner of the window which shows you what your items look like before you insert them into your project.  So for example, you click on a picture it loads up so you can look at it.  You click on a video clip and it loads up so you can watch it.  You get the point.  The preview area is also re-sizable by dragging a slider bar above the preview window to make the preview bigger or smaller, depending on your personal preference.

The main area is across the bottom, which is the timeline.  This is where you assemble the various items you want to include in your project.  While the layout of the timeline is more streamlined, it is still extremely easy to use and control.  Pinnacle still only has 2 video tracks, which is somewhat of a disadvantage compared to its competitors, such as Adobe Premier Elements and CyberLink PowerDirector, which both have more layering capabilities.  Like most video editors, you can switch between different views of the timeline, depending on your personal preference.  I personally prefer the regular timeline view.  Here are some screenshots of each view:

Storyboard view of timeline:

Regular view of timeline:

On the timeline you have several tracks available to use… the video track, a track for the audio that comes from the video, a music track, a sound effect track, and the Overlay track, which is used for titles and other video clips that are used in picture-in-a-picture effects.  You simply drag items from the various areas in the upper left (video clips, photos, sound effects, titles, etc) and drop them where you want them on the timeline.  As you can see from the screenshot above, for a transition you simply drop it between 2 items on the timeline and it creates the desired transition.

You also have numerous items in what is called your ‘toolbox’ to enhance/edit audio files, video clips, titles, etc.  The toolbox menu across the top provides access to these things, but there are some small buttons scattered here and there among the interface that give you access to the toolbox items as well.  Let me talk about some of these…

Audio Toolbox
The Audio Toolbox provides many options for editing the audio clips in your project.  You get access to it by clicking the small speaker icon located right above the timeline area from the Toolbox menu item at the top of the window.  With the Audio toolbox you can do things like… adjust the volume of audio clips, import audio from CDs, record a voice-over narration, create background music automatically with the Scorefilter tool, and add effects to audio clips like changing the speed or adding reverb or echo.

Let me mention something about the Scorefilter tool.  It automatically adds music to your video and adjusts itself to fit.  I tried several different pieces of music and it automatically filled in the exact length that I needed for my movie and it sounded seamless.  Pretty darn neat for someone who wants to quickly add some music to their video without any audio editing.  I have always been skeptical of tools like this, but I was pleasantly surprised.  I tried to trip it up and it performed well.

Scorefilter screenshot:

Video Toolbox
With the Video Toolbox you can you do things like… grab a frame of video and create a still image, add great effects such as pan-and-zoom, auto color correction, stabilize (to help correct that shaky camera shot you took), picture-in-a-picture, old film effect, earthquake, motion blur, and lots more.   You get access to it by clicking the small camera icon located right above the timeline area, or again, from the Toolbox menu item at the top of the window.  You can also edit the properties of a Montage (more on that in a min) that you have chosen for your project.  You really could get out of hand with all these and the temptation is large for sure.  But having them there means that you’ll have lots of options for your videos and you won’t have to repeat the same ones over and over for all your videos.  But of course if those aren’t enough for you, there is always Hollywood FX!  Hollywood FX effects add special effects to both photo and video.  As I mentioned, the program comes with a bunch, but of course Pinnacle offers many more effect packages for sale on their website.  Of course!

Motion Titler
This tool allows you to ‘jazz up’ your titles by adding motion and graphics to your text titles.  I will say that some of the motion graphics for the titles were a bit cheesy and reminded me of PowerPoint transitions circa 2003, but there are a bunch of them and some of them are pretty cool.

Create Smartmovie Tool
In the video toolbox you can also let Pinnacle create a music video for you using the “Create Smartmovie” tool.  This was pretty darn cool.  Simply use this tool to add opening titles, closing credits, drop your video clips on the timeline, choose what type of music video you want (fast-paced, elegant, old movie, romantic, etc), and the tool does the rest.  I won’t say that I would have chosen all the things that the Smartmovie did for my attempt at using this tool.  But for a novice video person, wow, this tool could really make some movies quickly for you.

Project Bin
A great feature is called the ‘project bin’.  It is accessed by choosing “Show Project Bin” from the Toolbox menu, or by clicking the small folder icon right above the timeline.  The ‘bin’ is a panel that opens up above the timeline that shows you only the items that have been using in the current project… video, audio, pictures, menus, etc.  Very nice touch.  This way, you don’t have to scroll through dozens and dozens of little thumbnails trying to figure out which picture or which video clips you used.

A feature that has been included with Pinnacle for several versions is what are called “Montage themes“.  I have always considered myself a creative type and for years I have stayed away from such things because in my mind I was more creative than these canned themes!  But I like the way these have evolved.  Pinnacle has included some great new themes in this version and I used several of them in the video project that I did during this review.  Let me explain what Montage themes are…

Montage themes have been around since version 12, but there are several new montages added in version 14. For those who don’t know, Montage Themes are where you select any pictures and/or video you want, and it displays them in the pre-formatted animated presentation of the montage.  What’s cool about using Montage Themes is that the montage comes with an opening animation, a closing animation, and several segue animations.  So you can maintain the same theme throughout your video and it gives is a much more professional look as opposed to using just plain-jane transitions like fading in and out.

Let me now mention some a couple other really great features of this program…

First of all, a great new feature that I haven’t seen before in previous Pinnacle products is the ability to right-click on a video clip in your timeline and choose “copy all effects” (or just individual effects) and then right-click on another clip and ‘paste’ the effect(s).  This is a huge time-saver, especially when you have a large video project.  Here is a screenshot:

One of the biggest improvements in this product is the unified import tool.  This is a huge improvement and will be the most noticeable to those of you who have been Pinnacle users for years.  I love this feature!  It is very intuitive and also allows you the ability to set the start and stop points in your importing process.  This is important because it allows you to start a video import (from a digital video camera for example) and then walk away knowing that Pinnacle will stop importing when it reaches the point at which you told it to stop.  This has been one of the biggest gripes I have had with Adobe Premier Elements.  I don’t have that option in Elements, so I have to either sit there and watch it until it is done or be willing to import the entire video tape to my computer harddrive, therefore taking up harddrive space with video I’ll never use.  You can even let the import tool import stop-motion clips every 8 or 12 frames.  Pretty neat option!  This improvement alone would be worth the upgrade to me!  Here is a screenshot of the import tool with an arrow pointing to the various things you can import from… VCRs, digital video cameras, your webcam, a Blue-Ray player, your computer’s DVD drive, etc.

Your export options are on par with all the other video editors… you can pretty much export to any format you want, including uploading directly to Yahoo video or Youtube.  I used the Youtube upload and it worked great.  Here are the available output options (along with a screenshot):

• ‘Disc’ output formats:  AVCHD, Blue-Ray, HD DVD, DVD, SVCD, VCD
• ‘File’ output formats:  AVI, DivX, Flash video, iPod compatible, MOV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-2 TS, MPEG-4, Real Media, Sony PSP, Windows Media, 3GP
• ‘Web’ output formats:  Yahoo video, Youtube

Finally, let me mention some of the things that I think are drawbacks of this program…

First of all, I experience the same problem that I have had with Pinnacle products for years, and I just don’t understand this.  I have used Pinnacle on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and now Windows 7, and the same thing happens.  I’ll try to explain it…

On my laptop the Pinnacle window can’t open up big enough for me to avoid having to scroll down the window just a little bit to see the very bottom part of the timeline.  This is no big deal really, I know how to scroll obviously and I have a mouse wheel.  But here is where it gets strange.  Sometimes when I am working with various tools… editing audio files or video files, working with pictures, etc., the scrollbar down the right side of the window will expand to fill up the entire scroll area, preventing me from scrolling down the window any further, even though I can’t see the entire window.  I hope this makes sense.  But basically, I can see that there are parts of the window at the bottom that I can’t see, but I am prevented from using the scroll bar to scroll down and see them.  The only solution is to minimize and then maximize the window.  I just don’t get it.

Secondly, there were several times that I was doing something during the editing process and the program simply locked up.  And there was no pattern for this.  One time I was editing a DVD menu.  Another time I was trying to grab an MP3 file and drop it on the timeline.  So I got into the habit of saving my work often.  To be fair, I also have this issue with Adobe Premier Elements, so perhaps it is an issue with my computer.  But reading message boards told me that others have this issue as well, so I am not sure what to think.

Final comments
Finally, I will mention this.  Knowing I was going to be doing this review, I enlisted my retired father to try using this program and see what he experienced.  He has never done any kind of video work using a program like this, so he is about as green as they come.  I didn’t give him any guidance at all… I simply handed him the box and said “good luck, let me know how it goes”.  Here were some of this comments…

“The initial video tutorial that came up when I first started the program was good, but it does not effectively replace the detail of an owner’s manual.   As a first-time user it was difficult to understand all of the necessary details of the software and it was cumbersome having to return to the videos, then having to watch the video from the beginning to get to the part that would explain the detail I needed.  The HELP menus were too summarized to provide the detail I needed.”

“The IMPORT function was simple; easily understood.  I used the box to import video from my VHS-C video camera.”

“I only did minor editing of each clip, deleting footage from the beginning or end of the clip.  That editing was simple.”

“The most challenging part of the project was creating the disc Menus.  The problem was NOT the actual creation of the menus but KNOWING that the menus would NOT take effect until the project was ‘processed’ to fit on the blank DVD.  This was frustrating!  After I saved the finished project I wanted to play it back to preview it before loading it to DVD.  On playback the menus appeared at the beginning of the video but were NOT selectable and did not appear at the beginning of each Chapter.  It was only AFTER going through the process of resizing the video and loading it to the disc that I discovered the menus had become active.  As I mentioned above, having TEXT instructions available would have made the project much easier.”

Bottom line
If you want a video editing program and you are new to video editing, you can’t go wrong with this program.  The ease-of-use and set of features out of the box mean that you can be successful quickly, and you’ll have some great videos.  And sharing to Youtube is a breeze, which is where most of your videos will end up.  The converter box performs well and you’ll be able to connect older as well as newer devices.  But it isn’t all a bowl of cherries, as you read from my comments and my father’s.

This program doesn’t includes some of the more professional features that more high-end programs would have like Adobe Premier or Final Cut Pro, but then for this price you can’t expect that.  Although, Adobe Premier Elements (which is a direct competitor to this product) does have more feature-rich options available to you, but Elements doesn’t perform quite as snappy as Pinnacle Studio does and it isn’t nearly as easy to use as this product.  If you want more features and a higher-end video editor, this program is not for you.  But it is so easy to use and adds new features with every release, I can create videos alot more quickly with this program, which is why I still use it.  I won’t give up my Adobe Premier Pro for my sophisticated projects, but Pinnacle Studio will still remain one of my recommendations when people come asking for my opinion!

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, Reviews

Tagged: A/V, Software, Video

Pinnacle Studio 14 MovieBox Ultimate Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 18, 2010 at 11:30 am.

MacHeist is a great opportunity to buy a number of Mac applications and donate to charity at the same time. For $19.95 you get 7+ applications.

From their website:

25% of your purchase will be donated to a charity of your choice from our list of partnering organizations. To date the MacHeist community has raised nearly $2,000,000 for these charitable causes, helping change the world for the better.

Right now, they are promoting the Nano Bundle. It currently includes 8 primary apps (just added Tweetie) and three bounus if you tweet about the offer after purchasing.

This is the last day, so go to the web site and see if there are enough interesting applications to make it worth your $20.

Please note that some applications are not unlocked until they have sold enough bundles. For example, RapidWeaver will not be unlocked until they hit50k sold (currently at 45.5k). Once unlocked everyone gets it (you don’t have to wait to 50k, but I guess there is always the risk they won’t hit 50k.

I have participated in the past and have acquired a number of great applications. So go, buy, and tweet for your bonuses.

Filed in categories: News

Tagged: Deals, mac, Software

MacHeist Going on Now originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 9, 2010 at 11:06 am.

Wouldn’t It Be Nice?

To start with, I’m not a big cell phone fan.  In fact, I have a reproduction of a turn of the century candlestick phone…you  know.. the kind where you hold the earpiece to your ear but speak into a mouthpiece mounted on a slender structure?

It works just fine for me.  I dislike talking on the phone that much.  I keep it short and simple.  On a cell phone it’s even shorter.  I’m not one to gab while driving or text while driving or walk around the mall or sit in a restaurant or walk around the grocery store yakking into my cell phone.  If it’s that important, email me.  At least I can use my hands to take down information without having to try to cradle my flat Palm Pixi.

Having said that, today’s smart phones do have their uses.  I keep my Palm Pixi with me because I have a GPS, tip calculator, regular calculator, To Do List, weather thingy, eBook reader, calendar,  and a Hangman game application on it.   And ladies, I also have a neat, handy dandy “other calendar” on it.  This calendar is called “Pink Pad” and it’s an application that tracks a woman’s monthly period.

If you’re a guy and the mere mention of a menstrual cycle gives you the willies, feel free to bag out of this review now.  What follows is simply a “woman thing” and four out of five you would not understand.

Pink Pad from Alt12 Apps is an application that allows you to track your menstrual cycles from their onset.  It allows you to notate the heaviness or lightness of your flow during your cycle, track cramping, mood, amorous feelings and journalize your overall well being during this time.  It features a daily, weekly and monthly view and predicts when your next cycle is most likely to show up, how many days until your next cycle is likely to appear,  what your most fertile days are and what day you are most likely to be ovulating.  For those who use this application and become pregnant, it tracks and journalizes your gestation.

This is a monthly view of the Pink Pad Application. The darkness of the pink dots on the calendar days will notate how heavy your cycle is based your on determination of light, medium or heavy flow. The flowers notate fertile days and flower with the dark center notates the day you are most likely to be ovulating. Any date with a circle notates those days when you have journalized more information.

Home Page View of the Pink Pad Cycle predictor. This will alternately show how many days left in an active cycle, date of estimated next cycle and next fertile days. Screenshots courtesy of House of Palm. com

Many women already know when their cycles will appear due to being on birth control pills.  With all of the bad press surrounding certain birth control medicines and for those women for whom the pill is not option due to religious reasons, medical reasons (the pill actually makes me sick) or wanting to become pregnant, Pink Pad is nice little handy helpful predictor.  It downloads for $4.99 at House of Palm.com.

Filed in categories: Reviews

Tagged: Health, Palm, Palm OS related, Software

“Aunt Flo’s” Next Visit? There’s an App for That originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 1, 2010 at 9:34 am.

If you’re looking for a fast paced card game that is easy to play and only costs a buck, Poker Attack from Seahorse Software is a good choice.

If you are familiar with the game of poker, you’ll know that hands can have:

One pair: Any two cards of the same value
Two pair: 4 cards of the same value
3 of a kind: 3 cards of the same value
4 of a kind: 4 cards of the same value
Full House: A combination of one pair and three of a kind
Straight: All 5 cards in sequential run like 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Flush: All 5 cards are in the same suit
Straight Flush: Same as a straight but all 5 cards have the same suit
Royal Flush: 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace of the same suit

The object of Poker Attack is that you want to build the 4 best hands at one time by moving the cards around between the hands. Sounds easy right? It’s not. Mainly because you only have 30 seconds to shuffle the cards around.

The game board has 4 hands (rows) of cards. To move the cards around, you tap one card then a 2nd card to swap their locations.

While the 30 seconds of each round is counting down, you can hear a ticking clock, or you can choose to listen to any songs in your iTunes collection. The album art even displays at the bottom of the game board, which is nifty. The only ‘issue’ with this feature is that the game doesn’t save your playlist when you exit and come back into the game.

With only 30 seconds per round, the game can feel a bit hectic. Pausing the game by tapping the countdown clock seemed like a good way to take a breather and figure out your next move. The darn developer thought of that though and covers the playing board when you’re paused. Drats!

High scores can be sent to the global best scores list, which is nice for those of you that have a competitive spirit. As you can see from the screenshot above, my progress so far has been pretty bad. I’ve never been very good at timed games, but this one is great to play anytime I have a few minutes for some fast paced poker fun. I like it and you probably will too. Give it a try.

Filed in categories: iPhone, iPad, iPod related, Reviews

Tagged: iPhone, Software

Poker Attack iPhone Game Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 24, 2010 at 8:49 pm.

I’m an enthusiastic proponent of backing up your systems, so when I was offered the opportunity to check out GoodSync2GO, I took a shot at it.  There are a plethora of programs/utilities that say they will painlessly save your data without having to think about it and I wanted to see where GoodSync2Go fits in.  Is it really easy, fast and automatic?

Here’s what it purports to do:

• Automatically backup all your critical files to ensure you’ll never lose them.
• Easily Synchronize your files between multiple computers and devices.
• Completely portable with GoodSync2Go for USB flash and portable hard drives.

To be clear, there are 2 main products in the line:  Goodsync which runs on a PC or Mac and the product I tested which is Goodsync2Go which can run on a thumb drive or external disk.  The functions are the same.

I downloaded the file to an external usb disk drive as instructed and ran the installation from the drive.  After a couple of minutes I had a couple of folders with various files and the Goodsync2Go executable.  Double clicking on the file started up the application.  I was expecting the exe to autoplay when I plugged in the drive, but it didn’t.

GoodSync backups are called jobs.  With the paid version of the app you can have an unlimited number of jobs and files within those jobs.  With the free version you are limited to 3 jobs with 100 files within the job.  It should also be noted that the free version has no support.  I had the paid or “Pro” version.

The first backup or job I created was for Quicken, a program I use extensively and many times I run it on different systems.  To keep the data synchronized I do a backup of the file on the current system and take that file and restore it to another system using the Quicken software.  It’s worked for me without problem.

Unlike using Quicken’s backup, GoodSync doesn’t know which folders/files to back up, so you have to tell it.  The online manual shows you where to find correct folders for several Windows applications, Quicken being one of them.  After finding them on the PC, I selected my usb drive as the destination and Goodsync created a folder.

The first step in the process is to analyze the files to find the differences between the source and destination or as described in the instructions between the left and right side of the Goodsync window.  The first time I did this the results were as the screen shot from above detailing that the files on the left should be copied to the folder on the right.  Although I was setup for two-way synchronization, because there was nothing at the destination, this essentially became a straight copy from left to right.

After hitting the sync button, the results showed the files were equal from left to right.  I would then take the usb drive to another PC that has Quicken installed and perform a synchronization between the folders on the drive and those on the second PC.  Ideally your data files are now the same on both PCs.  There is a caveat though.  You must not make changes on both data files at the same time or synchronization may get confused.  To quote from the manual  “Therefore GoodSync cannot sync two database files on Left and Right if both file(sic) were modified. Not seeing the internal structure of these files GoodSync will declare a conflict, as it sees two files both of which have changed”.  Another issue is that you must locate the receiving folder on the second computer, thereby requiring another step to do a copy.

After several weeks of using GoodSync2Go I came to the conclusion that it is too complicated for my purposes.  I used it to synchronize 4 different applications/folders between several computers and found myself  reverting to those applications built-in utilities to back up and restore the databases.  Using those I didn’t have to browse for the file locations on the PCs.  It might work for you and because you can try it for free, there’s nothing to lose.  A word of caution:  Make sure you know which way the files are being copied.  I wiped out my Quicken database because I didn’t pay attention.  I copied obsolete files over current ones by mistake.  That would never happen using Quicken’s backup and restore.

On the plus side it’s very flexible.  The backups and synchronizations can be run automatically.  Also, it allows one to synchronize to network devices and ftp servers.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, Reviews

Tagged: Software, Utility

GoodSync2Go Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 23, 2010 at 3:33 pm.

Several of my favorite Windows Mobile sites are talking about OpnMarket this morning. It’s a new application market for Windows mobile devices that only offers completely free apps that can be downloaded and installed directly from your phone. The only steps required to use it are to sign up for a free account and install the OpnMarket browser application on your device. I’ve been playing with it for the last 30 minutes or so and I give it a thumbs up. It helped me find a screen capture application that I’ve been needing. Go check it out.

[Via Windows Phone Thoughts and Pocketnow]

Filed in categories: News, Windows Mobile related

Tagged: Software, Windows Mobile

Totally Free App Market for Windows Mobile originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 22, 2010 at 11:07 am.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Moviestorm. All opinions are 100% mine.

Have you ever dreamed about being the next great director and making your own movie with exotic sets, actors, dramatic lighting, a soundtrack and cool camera angles? What about creating animated shorts like Nick Park of Wallace & Gromit fame? Now you can for free, with Moviestorm.

Moviestorm is an easy and fun way to make your own original movies, shorts, greeting cards and music videos. The best part is that you don’t need any movie making or animation experience to use it and the basic set-up is free.

All you do is sign up for a free account and download the software to install on your computer. There is a Windows and Mac version available. The Windows version is a 26 megabyte download and the Mac version is a 47 megabyte download.

After you install and launch the desktop app, it will allow you to download several different movie packs that you can use to add your own sets, characters and props to your movies. You get 5 packs for free, but you can pay for more characters, props & animations if you want. Packs cost from $9.99 to $29.99 There’s also a subscription plan that will get you cheaper content.

The software is really easy to use. The image above (you can click for a bigger view) shows a set that I created from scratch. It’s a room with walls, a door, window and some furniture. I even added an ‘actor’ that can be directed to move around, make gestures and speak. I could spend hours goofing around with apps like this one.

Here’s a prop picker screen. You can change the color and even some attributes for the props. For example, there’s a laptop prop that can be opened and closed.

Actually filming the characters moving around and interacting seemed a little hard for me to figure out, but there are short tutorials that you can watch to help.

For the absolute beginner that doesn’t want to learn anything, there’s Photostorm. It allows you to put your Facebook photos into a movie that is sort of like a slide show on steroids. Check out the video below that demonstrates Moviestorm and Photostorm features.

After your movies are finished, you can upload them to the Moviestorm site for others to view. Just playing with Moviestorm for the short time I tried it out, makes me want to try to make an actual short movie with it. Maybe I’ll make one that’s a cross between Indiana Jones, X-Files, MacGyver and Scooby Doo

Filed in categories: News

Tagged: Movie, Software

Be the next Spielberg with Moviestorm originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 10, 2009 at 10:14 pm.

Appswell launched yesterday, releasing a free iPhone application (also called Appswell) that uses crowdsourcing to identify and build the next great iPhone app. Appswell allows users to submit creative, entertaining and useful application ideas and receive immediate community feedback and votes. Winners will have their iPhone app developed and sold, and in return they will receive a $1,000 cash prize and a ten percent share of the profits.

The first contest started yesterday and will run for four weeks, after which the first winner will be announced. Winners will be selected based on user votes, and those winning ideas will be built by Appswell. Application concepts must meet Appswell’s guidelines, as well as Apple’s standards, including copyright and rules regarding explicit content. Appswell will announce winners through its iPhone application and its Web site www.appswell.com.

Filed in categories: iPhone, iPad, iPod related, News

Tagged: iPhone, Software

Your iPhone app idea could earn you $1000 originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 15, 2009 at 9:00 pm.

Have you ever wanted to copy a song or DVD to your iPod or cell phone and couldn’t because of the DRM protection? Typically the only way around this is to illegally remove the DRM protection. For those of you who are not familiar yet, there is a program from RS Audials called Tunebite that can legally remove the protection and allow you to convert the files to different formats.

Let me start by saying I spent a fair amount of time playing around with this program, and once you actually get the hang of it, for the most part it’s a pretty handy tool for anyone that is into music or video.
Like I said “for the most part”. Before I get into what the program can actually do for you, I need to let everyone know that figuring out how to navigate the program is in my opinion pretty difficult. There are no instructions so you basically have to learn as you go. Once you figure out that Tunebite is basically a click and drag operation then you can really get into what this bad boy can do.

First of all this program can convert DRM protected audio and video into unprotected formats such as mp3, ogg, wma, wmv, wav, mp4 or 3gp for your cell etc. It does all of this LEGALLY and without breaking the copy protection. It uses virtual sound card drivers to record a high quality duplicate of the original. The audio duplicates do not change in size due to the fact that you are only copying it. The same goes for most video that you record as well. However when you copy a DVD it does get smaller in size due to the conversion process. How small, actually depends on which format you are converting to. As for the sound and viewing quality, I never noticed a single difference. The videos that I copied turned out very crisp and clean. Obviously the picture quality is going to be a bit different depending on what type of device you are viewing it on and how good the resolution of that particular screen is. The only down fall is the conversion process tends to take a pretty long time. But the end result is worth it. And the conversion time also depends on how many files are being converted at a time, the fewer files the less time it takes.

Tunebite Platinum includes a CD burning feature to create audio CDs from your playlists. One very cool feature is the fact that it has a ringtone creator that enables you to create ringtones for your cell phone. No more paying to download that one song. And you can even pick the specific part of the song you want. Another great feature is the fact that you can synchronize your mobile device. By syncing your cell you will always have a backup of your most precious information. And the backup process on that actually only took a few minutes. But again the more information you are backing up the longer it is going to take.

Another plus is the fact that the program is compatible with DRM protected files from iTunes, Windows media and Audible. So anything you download form those sites are easily converted with no problems. And to top that off Tunebite will automatically populate your music with id3 tags, album art and lyrics.

And now for the kicker for anyone that listens to streaming internet radio which I am guessing is the majority of us, this program will actually run in the background and automatically record what you are listening to and store it as an mp3 file. It also does the same for any streaming video as well.

Overall I would say that Tunebite Platinum is a must have for music lovers. Once you get past the initial awkwardness of learning how to navigate through the program, it is actually very fun and extremely useful. If you are in the market for new music or new videos and you do not want to dish out the potential 1000′s of dollars it could cost to build a decent library, then how about dishing out the $24.90 for Tunebite Platinum and you can copy and record all the music and video you want and its 100% LEGAL. To start a collection that most people would drool over just go to www.tunebite.com

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear

Tagged: Software

Tunebite DRM Removal and Media Conversion Software Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 15, 2009 at 2:27 pm.

The other day I was searching through the iTunes app store for a new game to play on my iPhone. I checked the puzzle games section, the card games section and then the racing games section. As I was flipping through the pages of apps, one particular game icon caught my eye. It was for a game called Bathroom Racer.

Warning: If you’re are easily offended by rude or crude topics, then please skip this article. Otherwise…

We’ve all heard about the fart apps on the app store, but I was surprised that a game where you race a turd to a toilet bowl would be an app that would get approved by the ever watchful eyes of the iPhone app approval board (otherwise known as the KGB). That discovery caused me to do a few searches on related keywords just to see how many similar apps might be available. Searching on the words poop, turd and fart yielded pages and pages of apps. Who knew?! So as a result, I’ve taken upon myself to bring you a list of 10 really crappy apps for the iPhone. Enjoy. Or not…

1. Bathroom Racer – notarf Development – $0.99

This is the first app that I found in my epic search, so it’s only fitting that it’s going to be number one on this list. In this game, you drive a race car shaped pile of poo to the toilet. The object is to get the fastest time to the commode.

There are 10 levels to this game and you can use your own music library for background music if you desire.

The controls are very basic and consist of a Red and Green button on the bottom corners of the display. Press Red to move your racer Left and Green to go Right. Yeah, it’s not rocket science… Sometimes your racer will get going too fast and will flip over. When this happens, you can shake the iPhone or press the flip icon on the screen to flip it back over. That’s pretty much the extent of the game. It’s really not that much fun after the first 30 seconds of trying it out. Maybe if there was something to collect (like air freshners or toilet paper) for points. Maybe then it would be fun. Maybe. Ok, I doubt it.

2. iFart – LOL Software – $0.99

This app is called iFart in the app store, but when you buy and install it, it has a different icon and is named Ultimate Fart Machine. It’s not hard to figure out what it does…

You are presented with 3 screens of icons that map to different flatulence noises and 3 more screens that allow you to save up to 27 of your own recorded noises (oh joy).

After listening to 2 or 3 of the supplied sound bites, they all start sounding the same and they all sound really lame. Big surprise. I guess when you’ve heard one bombastic toot, you’ve heard them all.  This app might be fun for a pre-teen boy for about 5 minutes. Maybe.

3. iDontFart – http://www.idontfart.com/ – $0.99

In the same genre as #2, this app also provides sound bites. But, it has sound bites that are meant to be used to disguise more offensive sounding noises.

It provides 12 different buttons that when pressed, play a noise that you can use to cover up your… um… toots.

Some of the sound bites are kind of weird, such as finger snapping, feet tapping and coin jingling. I think the developer just ran out of ideas Ladies beware… If you buy plan to buy this app, most of the noises sound male. I think that might freak people out more than a fart noise. I’m just sayin…

4. Brown Note – LOL Software – $0.99

To round out the sound apps, this one claims to play generated noises that will cause you to have a bowel movement. Ummmm… sure…

According to Wikipedia:

“The brown note is an infrasound frequency that is said to cause humans to lose control of their bowels due to resonance. There is no scientific evidence to support the claim that a “brown note” (transmitted through sound waves in air) exists.”

I’d never heard of such a thing… Of course, I had to ask Rob about it because he pretty much knows everything (I’m not exaggerating). Of course he knew about it and told me that even if it could work, you’d have to hook the iPhone up to speakers and a subwoofer to get enough rumbles.

The app provides 9 different tones that range from static to high pitched to weird horror movie sound effects. Does it work? It might, if you take some Exlax, drink some coffee and eat some greasy tacos first. Did I test it? Ummmmm… maybe, for like a minute. The sounds gave me a headache instead of a stomach ache though.

5. Softserve Poop Machine – Ziconic – $0.99

This app is probably the most disgusting one of the group. It’s like having your own personal soft serve ice cream machine – from your nightmares.

On screen controls allow you to modify curvature, length and thickness.

I guess the developer included the very cartoonish vanilla, strawberry and chocolate options to keep the app from being over the top gross. But of course, if you are the type of person to buy this app (who the heck does buy this kind of app anyway?), then you’re NOT going to use those ‘flavors’. You’re going to go right for ‘fudge’ option. Bleh…

6. Poo Log – AvatarLabs – $1.99

For those of you that feel the need to keep track of every aspect of your life,this app will allow you to do so with quite a bit of detail. As soon as you launch the application, a timer starts to record the time it takes you to… um… poo. Once you’re done, you are then presented with some choices to accurately categorize the ‘event’.

If you have a lot of time on your hands, you can play a bathroom related trivia challenge. Check out a sample question by clicking on the thumbnail below.

At $1.99, this application is the most expensive (by $1) of the  group. In my opinion, if you need to keep a log (pun intended) like this one, then you really need to get more fiber in your diet.

7. Poop the World – SWS Digital – $0.99

This is another one of those TMI (too much info) apps that people seem to love. With Poop the World, you can immortalize your bowel movements by choosing the shape and fragrance. It keeps a personal record of these events, but goes one step farther, by allowing you to email the news to whoever you like and also post it to the Poop the World map. Location based computing  at its finest folks! Ah technology…

Although this app is crude and juvenile, I’d have to say that it’s the one of the professional looking of the  bunch. Click some of the thumbnails below to see the full sized screenshots.

They even have a facebook group for this app. Can you say cray-zee?

8. My Poop Pay – Wishbone Apps – $0.99

You’re at work, you’re in the bathroom having your morning constitutional and of course you have your iPhone with you. Right? Of course you do. So what better way to spend the time than calculating how much you are earning as you sit there.

This app will let you input your pay either per hour or by year and then a timer will count your earnings until you turn it off.

Want to know how long you have to be in the restroom to earn $5? This app can do that too.

And of course, you can share your bathroom earnings info with the world. Whee!

9. Have2P – Yellowpages – FREE

Wow, what do you know, this one is an actual useful and non-offensive application! It’s free too…

Have2P is a super simple app that uses your current location to show you the nearest restrooms. That means you’ll need to have a WiFi connection or cell reception to use it.

When you launch it, you can either type in a location to search or you can tap the Use Current Location button. You can also shake the iPhone to use your current location.

You will then be presented with a list of stores, restrooms or businesses that have public restrooms. You can even rate a restroom and leave notes about it for others to see. There’s even a button to tap that will show you a map to the location. When you gotta go, you gotta go…

10. Urinals – Bluebird Software – $0.99

The Bathroom Racer game was completely lame, but Urinals is actually pretty fun.

Urinals is a game where you are a bathroom attendant and you must direct the patrons to the correct stalls. At first it’s really simple, but of course it gets harder as time progresses and more patrons come into the bathroom.

You use your finger to draw the path the patron needs to walk to the correct stall (based on color). Then when the patron is finished doing their business, you have to draw the path to the bathroom exit. Just don’t cause patrons to collide with each other.

This game has cute graphics, easy controls and fun background music. Out of all of the apps highlighted in this article, this one is my favorite and I am not ashamed to say that I’d pay 99 cents for it.

Well, there you have it, 10 crappy apps for the iPhone. Would you buy any of these apps? Would you even admit it?

Filed in categories: iPhone, iPad, iPod related

Tagged: iPhone, Software

10 Really Crappy Apps for the iPhone – Literally originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 7, 2009 at 9:36 pm.

There is a new iPhone app by Agile Partners that has hit the iTunes store and it’s called Star6. Star6 is a program that let’s you act like a DJ/musician. You can sample songs,  add some rhythms and change things like pitch and speed simply by tilting your iPhone forward and back.

You should know that I’m not a teenager or even a young adult but playing with the different controls was fun. I can’t imagine using it in public and rocking back and forth like I’m suffering from a seizure but in the safety and comfort of my own home or maybe even with friends it might be fun.

It comes with lots of free samples and you can download more from the website. Probably one of the best features for all of you up and coming musicians is the ability to record your masterpiece and upload it to the site. I won’t be quitting my day job but if you like music and have some rockin rhythm I think you’ll enjoy Star6.

Filed in categories: iPhone, iPad, iPod related

Tagged: iPhone, Music, Software

Star6 iPhone Sound Mixer App Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 30, 2009 at 4:21 pm.

The new Yelp application on the iPhone 3GS has an awesome Easter egg: Augmented Reality. I’ve been really looking forward to trying this out, but note you do need to have an iPhone 3GS for this to work right now. Once you download the app to your iPhone 3GS, you need to open Yelp and shake it a bit ( I’ve heard 3 times, but it took like 5 for mine to work ) until a message about Monocle being activated pops up. Then you’ll see the ‘Monocle’ button on the top right; hit it and you’ll see a camera view with restaurants and other stuff with reviews shown in little tabs overlaying the camera view like in the pictures.

Unfortunately my iPhone’s compass doesn’t seem to be very accurate. I did the ‘figure 8′ thing a couple times, and it helps for a bit, but my iPhone seems to ‘drift’ off actual North after a couple seconds. I’m inside, so perhaps with a good GPS fix it’ll be more accurate. I’m still really happy with this surprise from the folks at Yelp, it makes this great app even better.

Filed in categories: iPhone, iPad, iPod related

Tagged: iPhone App, Software

Augment Your 3GS Reality – Yelp for iPhone 3GS originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 30, 2009 at 11:45 am.

Looking to sell that old, worn couch? Or tired of hanging out with the same boring people? Well, WhosHere created by MyRete connects you with new, awesome people right down the road or 100′s of miles away in countries like Australia or India.

With a database of over 100,000 people, you’ll never grow bored chatting with random people, with diverse backgrounds and finding out about their lives, hobbies or the stuff that they like to do on a lazy Saturday night.

Discretion is advised because pictures can be shared and swapped. Some people might message you suggestive material, but you can report them if you feel uncomfortable or think it’s gross. Even though you’ll run into a few creepers here and there it’s still a great place to put together an impromptu garage sale or find a date. This is a great place to find locals, swap your stuff, or meet up for a meal.

I was even able to sell my bed thanks to this helpful app. I just sent out a message to everyone in the area, and I wound up making a great sale! With the iPhone 3.0 software, copying and pasting can come in real handy when you need to send out a mass message to tons of nearby WhosHere-ians.

Another plus is that it may appear that you’re using your SMS, but don’t worry — it’s free! Chat as much as you want cause it’s not going to cost you a dime to chat with some hunky guy from Australia.

You might want to leave your iPhone on WhosHere all the time, but there are a few downsides. The app will suck the juice right out of your battery, and it has a tendency to freeze up, quit randomly, and can forget to let you know about your updates right away.

WhosHere is a fun, free app to stick on any iPhone and you’ll never know who’s here…

Filed in categories: iPhone, iPad, iPod related

Tagged: iPhone, Software

Proximity Networking. WhosHere iPhone App Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 15, 2009 at 8:20 pm.

There are plenty of apps out there for just about everyone and everything,  however not everybody likes to pay for them.  So for the people out there that are what some may call “cheap” (like myself) I have come up with my list of the top 5 must have FREE apps for the Blackberry Storm.  Some on this list are productive and some are just plain fun.

#1 iheartradio

This is the app that anyone who listens to the radio at any point in the day must have.  It is a Clear Channel Radio developed application and it allows you to stream over 150 radio stations from all across the country.  You also have the option to bookmark stations and tag songs, and you can even randomize for something new whenever you like. One last thing if you are going to be using this app as much as I do (which is all day long) I highly suggest that you make sure you have an unlimited data plan. http://www.iheartradio.com

#2 QuickPull

This application is a very simple concept.  Most people know or are at least told to do a reset on their Blackberry every so often to keep it running properly.  And in order to do so you need to pull out your battery wait a few seconds then restart your device.  QuickPull actually simulates that without the hassle of having to fumble around with the battery cover and the possibility of a dropped phone! (we have all been there) Now there are two different types of QuickPull the FREE version and QuickPull pro… the main difference is that the pro version gives you access to a few different features such as being able to schedule a reset.  Why is this app important you ask?  Well it’s very simple, it closes out any applications that were forgotten about and left running and it also frees up memory and by doing this it allows your device to run smoother and faster. http://software.crackberry.com/product.asp?id=27660&n=QuickPull-Lite

#3 StormLocker

Again this is a very simple concept, but a must have!  Anyone out there that owns a Storm has at one point or another hit something on the screen with their face or cheek while on a phone call, whether it’s muting the call or putting that caller on speaker phone.  StormLocker puts an end to all of that… The way its works is simple, as soon as a call (incoming or outgoing) connects the screen locks up which allows you to forget about the way you have to hold your phone (which would be slightly away form your face).  To unlock this feature during a call is very easy there is a slide to unlock widget at the bottom of the screen (very similar to the iPhone).  This app could save you a lot of frustration and embarrassment for that matter. http://www.joekrill.com/stormlocker/

#4 logMaid

This app runs in the background so there is NO icon for it.  It is designed to clear out your event log.  There are people out there that are not aware of this so called “event log”.  All it is, is a log that keeps track of everything you do on your phone, and when that log starts to build up (and it will very fast) it takes up a ton of memory that you aren’t even aware of.  Every hour it will clean out your event log freeing up extra memory for you and you don’t ever have to do a thing.
http://store.blackberryrocks.com/product.asp?id=26342&n=logMaid

#5 Viigo

This application is a bit of everything at your fingertips.  It’s only one click away from News, Weather, Entertainment, Sports (scores and schedules), Stocks, Flight information, Movies, Shopping, and of course your social networking like Twitter and Facebook.  You can tell Viigo your interest and it keeps itself up to date…So all your info is available immediately.  It’s the app that gets to know you!  Its just the information that you care about instantly.  http://www.viigo.com/

Now keep in mind there are more Apps being developed everyday, so be sure to check back regularly because I’m sure this list will change on a regular basis.  But for now I hope these are as useful to you as they are for me!

Filed in categories: Blackberry related

Tagged: Blackberry, Software

5 must have FREE apps for the Blackberry Storm originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 14, 2009 at 7:51 pm.

Most people probably wouldn’t think of their phone as a primary tool for helping them find a new apartment. I mean, other than making calls to different apartment buildings to ask for information, what else could you really use it for? However, if you happen to have an iPhone and the new MyNewPlace iPhone app, you can do a WHOLE lot more than just call for info.

MyNewPlace is a free application that can be downloaded from the app store. It uses the iPhone’s GPS for location-based search to find apartments in your local area or any other area by searching on city, state or zip. This application comes from one of the biggest apartment rental sites on the internet that provides listings for more than 6 million apartments and rental homes nationwide.

I really like that you can apply quite a few filters to your searches, so that you can find exactly what you’re looking for.

After the filters are applied, the search results will show a scrollable listing of all the properties in that area. Listings will either display a default icon for each apartment, or an actual photo of the building along with the address and price info.

Clicking on an entry will show you even more information about that listing. If available, images of the interior of the property are included.

You can click a button to quickly view a map to the location.

From the details screen, you can also call the phone number associated with the property, send them a message so that someone will contact you or email the listing to a friend. There’s even a feature that will allow you to take notes and use the iPhone’s camera to attach additional pictures of the apartment while you’re checking it out in person. You can then save the property as a favorite so that you can view it again later, when you’re trying to decide which one you want to rent.

See it in action

I think this is a pretty cool program. It’s easy to use and saves you time because it provides enough detail about a property to give you an idea if you want to go view it in person. For as many features as it has, it’s surprising that it’s free. If you’re getting ready to start shopping for a new place to live, I’d definitely check out http://www.mynewplace.com/iphone. You really don’t have anything to lose by doing so.

Filed in categories: iPhone, iPad, iPod related

Tagged: Software

MyNewPlace Apartment Search iPhone App originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 5, 2009 at 2:57 pm.

Electronic Books (eBooks) are huge news these days. From the Kindle to Barnes & Noble’s latest offering, portable readers are the news of the day. While some think this is the wave of the future, I have come full circle from my non-comvergence stance: At some point in the future, there will be a single device that will do everything you want well enough that you will stop using your single-purpose device. Some say that day has come and the iPhone is it. I’m not quite there mentally, but the proliferation of reading programs on the iTunes App Store makes me think some folks are going in that direction. This review is of one of many different reading apps, Classics2Go from KiwiTech.

Copyright before Steamboat Willie (who transmogrified into Mickey Mouse) was a looser affair than it is now. Works were owned by the originator, and they remained so until that person died. If no renewals took place, the work became public domain, and anyone could publish and use parts of it at will. For this reason, many of the book readers and collections (including the Gutenberg Project) concentrate on pre-1923 works: Dickens, Doyle, Wells, Shakespeare, et al. Modern copyright makes paying royalties to the originator (or the current copyright holder) difficult, at best.

Classics2Go takes all those books many of us grew up reading and loving, as well as the tomes we endured in English Literature over the years, and puts them into a library of easy to manage volumes right on your iPhone. There are two versions of the application – Classics2Go Lite and the Classics2Go Collection. Several individual titles are also available as stand-alone freebies.

To anyone who has read an eBook on a handheld device, the interface will be familiar, but probably more attractive than any other readers you’ve seen. To those who have never thought of reading on a handheld – give it a shot. The books show up in a Bookshelf, you read the titles off the spine, and tap once to add them to your shelf. Once there, another single tap opens the book to the cover. Each subsequent tap takes you a page along the volume. Tap to the left of center, and you’ll go back a page. In an instant, you’re reading with one hand, and captivated by the antique patina on the page. OK, so it doesn’t feel like an old book, and it’s not dusty or moldy, but the visual effect is that of reading one of the classics in a pulp printing from back in the day. There are even wrinkles on the cover.

When I first got a Palm, I began to re-read the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in stolen moments waiting for clients, sitting in traffic, and at lunch. I probably hadn’t read them since the 70′s. The greenish tint and the sans-serif print, not to mention having to tap with my fingernail or click a button to turn the page, was not quite the same effect as my hardback collected works edition that I think is still at my mom’s house. Here they are again, though, ready for another round, anytime I want. Now, I’m reading some other oldies (P. G. Wodehouse’s “The Girl on the Boat” and Dumas’ “Three Musketeers”, if you must know). Small touches like a tasseled leather bookmark that floats over the page to save your place when you exit one book for another let you know that this collection was put together by someone who is paying attention to your reading experience.

With Classics2Go, as long as you have your iPhone, you’ll never lack something to read. And with the collection, updating your application will add new books as they bring more to this platform. It’s a great way to carry around your required reading if you’re in school, or to re-read (or maybe discover!) those treasures from the past.

Filed in categories: eBook Readers and Gear, iPhone, iPad, iPod related

Tagged: eBook reader, iPhone, Literature, Software

Classics2Go iPhone eBook Reader App Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 16, 2009 at 8:09 am.

“New Media. Original Content. On Demand.”

Mediafly is your source for video and audio personalized channels including podcasts and more delivered to virtually any media-enabled device.”

I don’t really do audiobooks or podcasts- I’m just too visual of a person to focus on that sort of thing for too long. My mind wanders and the next thing I know I am engrossed on something else while the content plays to an empty audience. I tell you this so you understand that when I looked at Mediafly for all of my podcasting needs (at Julie’s request), I did so with an attitude of hopeful pessimism- hey, at least it offers video, right?.

Mediafly is basically a site that offers a wide collection of programming that automatically syncs to any device with the program loaded to it. It is offered for iPods and iPhones, Zunes, Zens, Sansas, and even Popcorn Hour and  Chumbys. The programs  remind me a lot of the odd little channels on TiVo- and in fact, some of the content seems the same. You can choose from channels for everything from news and technology to fitness and celeb gossip. They have several dozen ‘featured programs’ from Car Tech to Fox News to Start Cooking Video. A little something for everyone. I found several programs that looked good, so I went ahead and joined up.

Downloading and setting Mediafly is easy enough, even for a newbie like me. I did think it was a bit odd that I could not seem to just download it from the Blackberry itself, but not a big deal. You choose your device from the site, follow the well-written instructions, and the icon shows up on the Blackberry. Then, you just select your content and go. Other than the ‘selecting content’ bit, it only took a few minutes. The sheer amount of possible content took a little while to work through going channel by channel. I probably would have been better off searching alphabetically- that would have reduced the duplicate content in the channels. I ended up adding about 50 programs.

Some of the Music channel programs from the website

So far, so good. Now, to sit back and luxuriate in all of the content coming my way! I have not perfected the magic of Blackberry screenshots yet, so I apologize for the lack of photos. The Mediafly main screen is just a few large yellow buttons going across the screen- their favorite channels, your favorite pre-selected channels, search, and options.

Selecting my favorites reveals the first glitch- I chose too many channels to really actually use. I know all of you are snickering at me for the newbie mistake, and I deserve it. With each program running a few minutes to a couple hours long, if you just figure an hour a show I have over 2 days material being loaded every day.

Mistake #2 is that most of the content is audio. This should not be a big surprise- audio is easier and cheaper to produce, but I was really hoping for some of that there ‘video’ stuff I heard tell about. NOW I know that the audio content is marked by the little speaker icons you see in the photo above. If it had video content, there would be a TV icon beside the speaker icon. To make me feel like less of a doofus, I thought the icon was a preview button.

Mistake #3 is that the channels I was looking forward to the most seem to update the least. Figures, doesn’t it?

Details about a program offered in Mediafly

Mediafly offers this cool tool for each program- it has an overview of the program, a summary of the recent episodes, contact info, and a clickable timeline of past showings so you know both what has been offered and how often it is presented. Nice!The little yellow box is an example of the timeline pop-ups.

When an audio program is playing on the Blackberry, you see the program’s icon and your choice of the show info or episode ino. You can also look at past episodes. Click on ‘Play’ in the menu and you are ready to listen your life away! It sometimes takes a while to load content, but the waits are not too bad. I also notice that if you don’t do something at the end of a show, it eventually starts the nest program on the list.

Ah, if only you could be here- a moment of oddity just occurred. As I am writing this review, Mediafly asked to update itself, which was OK, then it reset itself, which is also OK. As the Blackberry reset, a message popped up saying it was enabling the Bluetooth headset- which is also OK since I don’t have one. However, now the stuff is playing over my HP Mini 1000′s speakers! How funny! Apparently I need to tweak the Bluetooth some more.

By the way- if you have some content to offer, Mediafly wants to hear from you.

I am sitting here with Mediafly running on my laptop (fed from my Blackberry), while trying to type and listening to the office radio. I am really not paying much attention to the program- which is what I was afraid of and is entirely my problem, not theirs. I need to tweak my feeds to focus on videos and the programs I really want to listen to. I am convinced that this program will be a keeper.

Filed in categories: Audio, Video, TV Gear, Blackberry related

Tagged: Blackberry, media, podcasts, rss, Software

Mediafly for the Blackberry Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 27, 2009 at 7:16 am.

Many years ago, while using one of my Palm devices, I discovered a company named SplashData. They had, among other programs, an app called SplashPhoto. This pair of apps (one for Palm, one for Mac or PC) allowed me to sync photos with my Palm, creating an electronic brag book – photos I had taken, optimized for the small square of screen I carried everywhere. Recently, SplashData have begun to create apps for the iPhone. I’ve recently been asked to look at a new program called File Magic. While running it through it’s paces, I revisited an application I’ve had on my iPhone for a good while: File Magnet, from Magnetism Studios. The two are amazingly similar in more than just the name.

The File Magic iPhone interface groups all files by type.

File Magnet also organizes by type, but there is no grouping.

Many utilities in the past year have begun to offer a computer-based utility and a corresponding app on the iPhone – list managers, syncing notes programs and the like. Once you get both packages installed, it’s fairly easy to find and connect, as long as you’re on the same WiFi segment. Some public WiFi hotspots block this transfer, however, so I recommend testing it in all the places you frequent before depending on it. Your company wireless LAN or your favorite coffee shop may have those filters in place.

Early in the OS 2 App store days, File Magnet came along and would move text files, PDF files and such from your computer to your iPhone. (It never occurred to me at the time, but it also handles media files as well! Or maybe it’s just been with a recent update.)  Joined recently by File Magic, they both cover many file types (video, audio, email messages, photos, text/word/PDF documents, contacts, and even folders full of documents), delivering a read-only copy to your iPhone for use there, or for transfer to another computer. There are no editing functions for any file-types. The ease of connecting to a computer over Wifi (rather than the hassle of authenticating to each computer in iTunes) means you can easily move any covered document type between your iPhone and a computer, just by going to that network segment. (Connect to one machine, run the free Mac/PC version, start the iPhone version, allow the connection from your iPhone, transfer the files, move to the other network, start the program on that MAc/PC, allow that connection, and transfer to the computer. It’s much simpler than it sounds.)

The desktop interface to File Magic takes a three-paned approach.

File Magnet's two-paned window groups by type, without filtering.

When File Magnet first came out, it was unique in offering direct file transfer, rather than syncing with the built-in apps (Notes, Mail, iTunes, etc.). It’s simply a window on the Mac with a drag area at the top and a file list at the bottom. To transfer, you drag the files in, and they will transfer when you run the app on the iPhone while on the same WiFi network. There’s also a “+” button that brings up a file selection window. File Magic is set up almost identically, but offers a filter in the lower pane that lets you look at all images, all audio files, or the folders you have moved over, etc.

I only use one Mac, so it took a while to see any benefit from these programs. A cabled connection to iTunes and the various utilities that sync through iTunes (iPhoto and iTunes for photos and music), plus the editing capabilities of a program like SyncBook is of more interest to me than simple file transfer, and is quite a bit faster, even though more data is synced. On the Palm, there was no good photo display app, or any way to get photos over and collected there. That was part of the beauty of SplashPhoto. With the iPhone, there is a lot provided by Apple in the function of the included apps and iTunes. The bundled Mail client will allow attachments in jpg, .doc, and .pdf. What isn’t so easy to sync is files that you have created or been sent through services other than email: documentation downloaded from a server in your office network, those photos from your office party handed to you on a USB key drive, and other random files. If you’d like to pass them along to others without having to sign in to their iTunes account, File Magnet and File Magic can both help. I’ve also found this to be a great way to organize files I may want to reference in a meeting: toss the pdfs into a folder and move it over. In a meeting where computers are not allowed or would be awkward, pulling out your phone to reference some notes can be a good substitute.

Differences

For Mac users who use iWork, File Magnet handles Pages and Numbers files. They have recently added support for Windows, as well. And in use, double-tapping on a document that extends off the screen brings up a nice sliding bar that will help scroll through the document. For large Numbers files, this is fantastic. File Magic does not handle these types of documents, and has no navigation within the document other than pinch-zooming and moving around with the finger.

File Magic and File Magnet cost the same: $4.99 for the iPhone version, and the Mac/PC version is free.

Rating these utilities is tough – depending on your needs, they can be “Meh”, pricey-but-nice, or the best thing ever. Obviously, if you’re a Mac user with iWork, you’ll be much happier with File Magnet – it handles those documents nicely. If you like the organization into file types, due to having a lot of files, File Magic may be more your cup of tea. Overall, I’ll have to give three stars to File Magic and four to File Magnet.

File Magnet

Pros:
Quick authentication
No iTunes hassles
Handles iWork files
Nice long-document navigation

Cons:
Files are read-only, in the program
WiFi only – slow for large/many files
Transfers can be blocked by router

File Magic

Pros:
Quick authentication
No iTunes hassles
Good document-type filtering

Cons:
Files are read-only, in the program
WiFi only – slow for large/many files
Transfers can be blocked by router

Filed in categories: iPhone, iPad, iPod related

Tagged: iPhone, Software, utilities

SplashData’s File Magic and Magnetism Studio’s File Magnet for the iPhone originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 23, 2009 at 7:16 am.

Locale was a Grand Prize Winner in the first Android Developer Challenge. It is a tool that allows you to perform a number of actions based on conditions you define in the application. It makes great use of the Android G1′s location abilities, but frankly the name is misleading, because it can do far more than just update based on location.

Each Locale situation has one or more conditions that trigger one or more actions. The conditions available are:

• Battery (below, above, unplugged, plugged in)
• Calendar (any event on your calendar)
• Contact
• Location (based on cell tower, wi-fi, or GPS)
• Time (Set start/stop time and days of week)

The settings that you can change include:

• Display (brightness and timeout)
• Network (Bluetooth, GPS, and/or Wi-Fi)
• Notification (Status Bar, Vibrate, and/or Alarm)
• Ringtone
• Volume
• Wallpaper

Location-based settings

The first example that comes to mind is location-based. With Locale I can always be sure that my phone doesn’t ring in Church. You can use the map to define a location. The location appears as a highlighted circle:

This screen makes great use of the Android interface. You can drag the thumb tack around the screen, or drag the circle’s border to resize the location. You do not have to have GPS turned on for this feature to work. It can determine your location based on the Cell tower your phone is connected to. This is not as accurate as GPS, but works well for my Church mode.

Once I’ve defined the condition (at Church) I can add the settings I want. The first one is obviously Volume set to silent. But I can also change my wallpaper to something more heavenly, turn on/off GPS, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi and even choose how it notifies me of my location change.

Time-based settings

Another situation I defined is Night Time. I set locale to set my phone to silent mode between the hours of 11 pm and 8 am.This way I will not be disturbed by phone calls in the evening. You could also use this to have a work-appropriate ringtone.

From this screen you can select a start and end time as well as the days of the week. In the following example the condition is st for 8 am to 6 pm for Monday through Friday:

Contact-based settings

My Night Time setting is nice, but I worried what would happen in case of an emergency. So I added another situation called Wife. When any of my Wife’s contact numbers contact me, the ringer turns on. You can select multiple contacts at one time.

Managing Situations

Locale handles multiple situations by giving priority to the first one listed, so in this example:

Locale main screen

My phone is silent when I am in Church. Between the hours of 11pm and 8am my phone is silent except when I receive a call from my wife. It will ring at night when it is from her, but not at Church.

You can also see that the Home situation is currently disabled. You can also use this screen to see if any of the conditions are currently active. When active, the situation name appears in bold.

You can also change the order of the situations from the manage screen:

You move the situation by dragging the dots (looks like a textured area) to the position you want, or into the trash can to delete.

I wish you could set a setting for when the condition ends (that is, when I leave Church) but that is not an option. However I can set defaults. I set the default for my ring volume, so whenever a condition is not met, my ringer is on. Unfortunately this can yield less than ideal results. While at a conference in Vegas, my ringer turned on at 10am in the middle of a presentation, because it was no longer “night”.

Locale has become one of my essential applications. It makes an excellent use of the Android interface and provides a lot of flexibility in configuring. The program is fairly intuitive and defintitely worth the time to experiment with.

Filed in categories: Android related

Tagged: Android, Software

Locale for Android Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 29, 2009 at 3:00 am.

mWallet by Total Wireless Solutions is a very nifty application. You don’t have to use every feature that it offers but if you decide you want to, it’s definitely a practical step. It only costs $7.50 for an S60 device and $6.50 for a UIQ device.

In its most basic form, this application is great for those with a bad memory or those who keep written record of absolutely everything. The feature that sets this apart from simply putting details in your contacts list or your notes folder is that it is passworded.

I was previously keeping my bank details in my phone, because it’s much easier and less messy than having to dive into my filing cabinet every time I need my personal information.

This application simply offers far more detail, ease of use and security.

As well as keeping my bank details in my phone, I was also keeping a small pocketbook with ALL of the email newsletters I was signed up for and all of the online clubs and memberships I had. Passwords, I’m sure you all know, vary from website to website according to their requirements: length, requires numerals, case sensitive etc so my passwords were also in this pocketbook.

Although these passwords may be for silly things like clubs and memberships (by silly I mean, no one has anything to gain by hacking them), the passwords may also be reused for something that IS important, for example, email addresses and social networking. It’s highly risky keeping them written down. Unfortunately, I took this risk to make allowances for my shocking memory.

I never went as far as putting my pin numbers in my phone, however, this resulted in various trips to the bank because I had forgotten my pin numbers for various cards.

With mWallet, all I have to remember and keep safe is one password and everything else is remembered and kept safe for me.

The categories mWallet provides you with are:

The category “Cards” includes:

And the category “Passwords” includes:

There are many fields under each category giving you options to keep extensive or minimal details. The view within each category is nicely laid out, enabling you to see multiple details at once.

It also has a personal notes category which is similar to the application “Notes” on most Nokia phones. It comes in handy if you want to make a protected note to come back to later. Unfortunately it only takes 512 characters.

The great thing about it is when viewing anything confidential (ie. PIN numbers, credit card numbers, passwords etc), it masks them by displaying them as asterisks as a further precaution. All you have to do is press options then unmask all and it will display them for as long as you need:

As well as this, if you leave it idle for a long period of time it will reask for you password.

The only fallback I can find for this software is that when you go to view your information, it displays it in the same editing form that you used to enter it. It makes it difficult to view all of the details you need at once. It would have been easier if it only showed the information you entered rather than having to scroll through several blank fields to find the information you’re looking for.

I will reiterate how great this application is for those of us with a bad memory. I’m a very organised person with a shocking memory. I even had to reset my password to log in and post this article. (And then I entered the new password into my mWallet so I can’t lose it). It’s a great product and is going to save me a lot of hassle in future. It’s more secure than carrying a notebook around, more convenient than having to go through my filing cabinet and more organised than keeping details in a txt file on my phone/PDA.

Filed in categories: Uncategorized

Tagged: S60, Software, Symbian, Symbian OS Related, UIQ

mWallet – Symbian Utility Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 19, 2009 at 11:07 am.