grantalias

My Favorite iPhone Apps

nobody@vox.com(grantalias) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:21:06 -0400

Over the weekend I had some time to play around with Apple's App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Here are some of my favorite applications.

Games

leveling up my character

Aurora Feint the Beginning:

Your first impression might be that's Aurora Feint is just a Tetris or Coloums knock off but there is dept to this game.

You get the unique element of a RPG with a puzzel game. Yes I know they are out there I've just never played any of them.

What really makes Aurora Feint stand out from the rest is that you can turn your iPhone / Touch completely around to rearange the blocks and move them around to make new arrenments to complete the level.

I can't get over that this is actually free. It looks better than most of the pay games on the App Store and plays better than some I have bought on my old Game Boy SP.

The one downside is that it is a little glitchy and once in a while hangs. Hopefully the developers will address these issues in future updates.

Jibro Break

Break:

Ok it ain't no Arkanoid but it does get the job done for free.

It's great to use your finger to slide the paddle back and forth to hit the ball it really works well. Another great touch (pardon the pun) to pause the game you simply remove your finger from the screen. Genius!

The graphics look very good on my Touch and for free you can't beat it.

Utilities

Light:

Does what it says. It produces a full white screen on your screen. I have already used my Touch to light up my room to get into bed, but this app is like a search light.

Remote: Apple files this under entertainment, but I consider it more utilities.

I can use it to control my iTunes anywhere in the house using the wifi. Now if I had speakers upstairs connected to my computer downstairs I would totally use this.

I know there are hunderds of app on the store but I just wanted to get the ones I've used to kill the battery on my Touch numerous times in the past few days out there for others to try out.

If any of you have some favourite apps I would love to hear about them.

And if you want to read some reviews on App Store apps check out AppStoreApps from Four20.

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Little Tikes Spyware

nobody@vox.com(grantalias) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 08:29:34 -0400

My Real Digital Camera

first photo of Walle with My Real Digital Camera

FYI Little Tikes you might want to do a virus check on your My Real Digital Cameras as they come off the assembly line.

Ours had spyware (Ghost.pif), luckily my virus scan caught it.

Other than that it's a nice little durable camera, not the best quality but for kids it's more than adequate.

A little surprised that it took 4 AAA's, but that's just a peeve of mine with kids toys that take AAAs.

Little Tikes Trojan

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iPhone Canada Lauch

nobody@vox.com(grantalias) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:26:55 -0400

3G iPhone Line Up

8:55am I swung by the local Rogers store to see what was going on.

There was about 10 people in the line. One looked like a senior citizen and a kid of at most 10 years old and they both looked like they were with family.

Le iPhone

Inside the store I could see they had an iPhone on display and the workers were quite the busy bees getting ready for the opening of the store.

Now I'm just waiting for the 2.0 firmware software. Unfortunately it looks like the iTunes store is coming back with an error message.

Itunes firmware

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iPod Touch Apps

nobody@vox.com(grantalias) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 04:38:37 -0400

ITouch Apps

I've spent a good part of the night watching Leo Laporte on his 24 hours of iPhone coverage.

So I got iTunes 7.7 to get into the App Store and as you can see I've already downloaded some apps. Unfortunately they still haven't pushed the 2.0 firmware so hopefully it will be out when I wake up in a few hours.

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iPhone / Touch Vox Sign In Screen

nobody@vox.com(grantalias) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:08:52 -0400

Mobile VOX log in

Much to my joy loging into VOX the other day I was greated with a iPhone / Touch sign in screen.

Unfortunately, still no compose page. I hope for the iPhone App Store launch on July 11th and a VOX app from Six Apart.

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Download Day 2008: Spread the Fox

nobody@vox.com(grantalias) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:50:25 -0400

Download Day

Help Firefox set a Guinness World Record for the most downloaded program in one day this Download Day.

Firefox is a great web browser and I've been using it for years. They made tabbed browsing cool and have tons of add-ons and themes to suite every taste or need.

So give them a try. Download day starts June 17th at 10am Pacific or 1pm Eastern. You can figure out the math for Central.

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Blog It!

nobody@vox.com(grantalias) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:00:27 -0400

At long last Six Apart has brougth fourth a web application for the iPhone / iPod Touch crowd like myself. It's called Blog It and I'm using it right now to write this post.

But it's not just for VOX my favorite blogging platform. It will work with Twitter, Pownce, Facebook and other six Apart blogging offerings to name a few. So you can update your online presence everywhere at once with one post.

I can't tell you how I've waited for something like Blog It to come along from Six Apart. Now if only I could add comments and replies to posts on my Touch.

Of course I can't wait to see the Typepad application that will be free from the iPhone application store when the 3G iPhone goes on sale July 11th.

So this Blog It web application has till then to impress me.

Update: I added the following on my computer since Blog It does not have an edit, or a save as draft features.

And Apple get some damn cut and paste going.

Check out Blog It's site.

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Hand Over Your iPod

nobody@vox.com(grantalias) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:51:41 -0400

CTV Montreal

In Montreal there has been a few attacks and stabbings of late in the Metro and the culprit seems to be iPods. No, the iPods aren't stabbing people but muggers sure are and portable music players are very tempting target.

Yesterday CTV Montreal News covered the trend and SPVM has advised people to keep their iPods out of sight on the Metro.

That's good advice, unfortunately in today's fast paced, sound byte news they left out a critical point.

Steal me!

When out in public ditch those trademark white ear buds for anything else. Nothing screams I've got a $300+ music player and come and get it like those do.

And if you want to go to extreme lengths, you should always carry an old media player along with your iPod so you can hand that over when / if mugged. Because we all have a few of those lying around. Think of it as recycling .

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Not That Mac Expo

nobody@vox.com(grantalias) — Wed, 28 May 2008 01:06:43 -0400

Macexpo_page

For a few seconds today I thought that Mac Expo was going to be held in Montreal this year. Unfortunately it's not that Mac Expo but an anniversary promotion for Quebec based Micro-Boutique.

Needless to say I was disappointed as it meant that Mac celebrities like Leo Laporte, iJustine & Cali Lewis would not be decending upon the city to cover it.

photo from macquebec.com

If nothing else, you'll get some free seminars on ubiquitous Apple software (iLife, Final Cut & Aperture 2.0) and maybe snag a 1GB SD card or USB thumb drive if you're one of the first 1500 attendees. Of course since their site is french only, I wouldn't expect their seminars to be given in any other language. But that might not be an issue for you.

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Fly You To The Moon

nobody@vox.com(grantalias) — Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:27 -0400

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

All credit for this great find goes to my neighbour osde8info.

No earlier than November 24th 2008, NASA will launching the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to the moon to find safe landing sites and locate potential resources just to name a few mission objectives.

As if the work this orbiter will be doing isn't cool enough, NASA is collecting names to be added to the payload. So be sure to add your name, I've added the whole family.

When you add your name you get a PDF certificate showing your support. But be sure to hurry, you only have until June 27th 2008 to have your name included

Grant LRO

I'm under no delusions that this will be the closet I ever get to space and that's okay. But the alternatives are just too expensive and you have to be dead.

There are some rendered video of the LRO here and here that you may also find interesting.

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