Useful, but not used [Gator]

Back to my iPhone.

No, that's not a movie with Justin Long reprising the role of Marty McFly. (Though, presumably, Steve Jobs would be Doc.)

Neither is it the mythical Back to My Mac application that somehow never gets me all the way back to mine.

No, you see, a few posts ago I began a look at all the applications that are on my iPhone. Apple was approaching the one billionth iPhone app sold through the App Store, and I'd like to think I was a part of that.

Much has happened since then. The billionth app was sold. My iPhone died. It was my third, so iPhone #4 had to be reloaded and resynced. I traveled a lot. The Celtics beat the Bulls in 7 games. I listened to many podcasts. I found a need for flatulence applications.

But I'm back on topic, and ready to show you Page 8, and the 10 apps that are currently there.

See, that's the thing right there. Four weeks ago, when I began this series of reviews, I only had 8 apps on page 8. That's what happens with the App Store. There are so many interesting and useful apps, so many of which are free, it's easy to go into app-overload. In the meantime, some that were originally on the back 40 that is page 8 got moved up, and other apps got moved to the back. So, before any more apps get shuffled around, here is...

Page Eight
As the post title says, these apps might be useful, they're just not being used by me often enough for them to be nearer the front page. But, like an old belt, they might come in handy sometime, so I'm not ready to put them in the Trash just yet.

YouNote is a neat little utility that allows you to capture notes, pictures, recordings, doodles, or web pages inside this app. These can then be backup and/or restored to/from your computer using a desktop app. Both apps are free.

Scrooge & Cratchit is a free e-book from author Matt McHugh that is written as a sequel to Christmas Carol. I thought it was a very interesting way to follow-up the original story, exploring what the natural progression would look like if Scrooge had really had as much of a change of heart as it first appeared.

Stitcher is a free app that bills itself as "personalized audio" and tries to pass itself off as a radio station aggregator, ala AOL Radio. It is actually nothing more than a podcast aggregator. Once upon a time, that was cool, but since podcasts can now be downloaded directly through iTunes, it is no longer necessary. (I really should go ahead and delete it.)

Wanted is one of many silly, specialized apps that are one gag. The gag with this app is that you can make your own wanted posters from pictures on your phone. You can then save them to your photo library, which you can then sync back to iPhoto to do whatever you like.

The tools and little things you can add to your pictures are surprisingly good. As you can see from this picture of Summer, the finalized pictures are sepia-toned images, which look like the old time wanted posters. You have the option to customize your poster with names, wanted amounts and other choices. Wanted is a free app.

HandDBase is one of the few apps I've paid for, and, at $9.99 is tied for the most expensive app I've purchased so far. This relational database manager from DDH Software has its roots in the Windows world, so there are some limitations on the Mac. The biggest limitation is that syncronization is mostly on the PC side. I purchased this app because of limited choices at the time and a desire to begin some inventory management at the church. However, data entry via the app isn't as intuitive or easy as I had hoped, and the inability to store pictures in a field is very disappointing. Overall, if I lived in the PC world exclusively, I would really like this app. But I don't.

[Okay, at this point, I've got to confess...you might even be interested in all this, but I'm losing interest. I've worked on this piece several different days, for a couple hours at a time, and it seems like I'll never finish. This is it. I've got the rest of this page of apps and seven more besides, but I don't want to write about it anymore. Since this is my blog, I won't. If you have a question about any of these apps, I'll be happy to answer. Otherwise...let's go on to something else.]

FinallyFast = FantasticallyStupid [Gator]

File this one under "Commercials I Can't Stand".

If it was just dumb, I don't think I would mention it. If it were crass or boring, I wouldn't be writing about it. This crosses the line, past stupid, almost to criminal.

I just saw it again, and immediately said to myself - that's it, I'm writing about this.

The commercial is for FinallyFast.com. It begins with a guy complaining that his new computer is really slow. Then...well, watch this two-minute version, then we'll talk...



Did you hear the announcer? "Make any computer fast." Of course, he says that while the text on-screen tells you that FinallyFast is for PC computers only. That means, not Macs.

But, wait...what was it the first guy, the one complaining about his slow computer, was using? An old iMac. And the second person in the commercial was using...a MacBook.

On further inspection, Ascentive, the company touted as having been featured in BusinessWeek and Forbes, WAS indeed featured in Forbes...in 2002...for its program that lets users spy on supposedly private instant messages. That's right...they were featured for...spyware.

Nice. And evil. And a site and company to avoid.

Doing my part [Gator]

[Warning: for those that are bored by computer-talk, especially as pertains to software and the iPhone, this post...and the ones to follow...are not for you. You've been warned.]

Apple is currently counting towards the billionth download from their iPhone app store. I know I've done my part. Ever since the update of the iPhone last summer, when the App Store opened, there have been an ever-increasing variety of cool and useful apps. Most of the ones I choose are free.

Currently we are restricted to nine pages of apps. At 16 per page, plus the four on the bottom bar, that means you can have a total of 148 apps on your iPhone at any one time. I don't have that many, but I do have 102.

So, as a public service...um, okay, whatever...here are all 102 of my apps, why I have them, why I do or don't use them, and anything else that might help you decide to add them to your phone or not.

I've organized my nine pages from most important to least important, mostly. And the four most critical apps are on my home row - the row at the bottom that appears on every page.

We start with the least important, on...

Page Nine
The apps on this page made it here for one very important reason - I don't use them. It doesn't mean they're bad or useless...necessarily. But I don't use them. Ever. So why are they here at all? Why haven't I deleted them? Well...I MIGHT use them. Maybe. Sometime. Okay, I know I won't, but I can't bring myself to delete them.

There are some apps I have deleted. Some good ones, too. Probably the best one I've deleted is the Masters app. But the Masters is over, so I won't need it. There were a couple NCAA Basketball Tournament apps I deleted, too.

As for these apps, the top row contains four Twitter apps that all have some great features and work quite well, though somewhat differently from each other. In fact, at one time I was using all four of them, in order to manage my different Twitter accounts (follow me at Twitter.com/TimMcDaniel.) Probably my favorite of the four was Twitterific. All four of them are free.

UReport is a free Fox News app, that allows you to submit news stories to Fox. Never used it.

SmileDialLite is a neat little free app that does one thing - it allows you to store the photo of one of your contacts with their contact information. Then, when you start the program, you see your contact's photo full-screen, and when you tap the bottom half of the picture, it dials their phone number. If you tap the top half, it will send them a text. Of course, this has limited appeal, since you can only store one person. SmileDial Pro allows multiple people for $3.99. Nice gimmick, but I don't need it.

Lightsaber is the official Star Wars app. Cool, but I don't use it. (It's free.)

Air Sharing is probably the most useful app I never use. It allows you to wirelessly move files from your computer to your iPhone and vice-versa. It works. It's easy. Why don't I use it? Um...I don't know. Perhaps it's because I don't usually need to. But it's there in case I do.

I got Air Sharing for free, during an introductory offer. Now it costs $4.99 through the App Store.

You'll notice that at the bottom of my screen, in my home row, are my four most critical apps, and they're not the four that Apple pre-determined should be my four most critical apps.

Okay, three out of four are. The Phone, Safari, and iPod apps are far and away the most important things about the iPhone, because, well, it IS a phone, the internet is always important, and, as much as it's a phone, it's also an iPod.

The fourth app in my home row is one of the few apps I've paid for. It's also the reason the other four Twitter apps ended up on the ninth page. Tweetie is $2.99, and it takes the place of the other apps mainly because it handles multiple accounts. I update my Twitter status - and also my Facebook status via Twitter - many times a day. I also have Twitter accounts for the church (Twitter.com/FaithAssembly), my BibleQuizPodcast (Twitter.com/BQPodcast), and a couple of others, so this has become an important app.

Next: The 8 on page 8.

I hate when News people use statistics to lie [Gator]

A new article from the AP sounds the alarm: PEOPLE HATE FLORIDA!

Actually, using driver's license data, it says that only 410,000 people a year are moving here, as opposed to 585,000 in 2003. Okay, that's down 30%...but still it's 80% of the population of Wyoming. Moving in. Every year.

A library in your pocket [Gator]

One of the coolest gadgets out there is getting updated. The updated Amazon Kindle, now version 2, was announced today. The first version was widely criticized for its clunky appearance, but actual users seemed to love their Kindle.

Version 2 actually looks kind of cool. What is it, you ask? It's a web-enabled, anywhere, anytime, book-reader. It allows you to download books and magazines and other web content quickly. It will even read it to you.

UPDATE: 2/10/9…new links.

What Superman would be if he didn't have to deal with kryptonite [Gator]

Tebow Skips Senior Season, Ascends Directly Into Heaven

MIAMI (SP) -- Shortly after leading the Florida Gators to a national championship with a 24-14 win over Oklahoma, junior quarterback Tim Tebow announced he would skip his senior season and ascend 
directly into heaven...{Read the rest of this story here}


I guess this is meant to be a jab at the press, including the Fox announcers, ESPN announcers, CBS announcers, and every other person who has ever met Tim Tebow. I just think it's funny, mostly because Tebow doesn't believe all this stuff. (And I don't think his friends and family would ever let him.)

Thanks to Bob Henley for sending this my way.

(And if you haven't seen this video, then you probably don't watch much sports news.)

More to come [Gator]

Where do I begin?

A great, great, great day to be a Florida Gator. From the moment that Major Wright separated Oklahoma's Manny Johnson from his senses, it was a wonderful thing to watch the Gators capture their 3rd National Championship. [The picture is from GatorSports.com]

And there's more to come, we think. It's good to be on top. It's good not to be Florida State or Miami or Notre Dame or Tennessee or many other teams that can only look up from their position far down the mountain.

One of the best things about this was being able to share it with my children, having been able to attend games with them this year, so they got to experience what a championship season is like. It's good.

Another Mac vs. PC Battle [Gator]

Saw this YouTube clip over on Josh Griffin's blog (which he saw on someone else's blog, who, I think, saw it somewhere on Facebook...) Really creative, but I wasn't sure what the ending was supposed to mean.

And - just to save you a minute, if you've been trained like my children to wait to the end of the credits before you leave the theater - the last minute of this video is all credits, nothing else. Feel free to leave.

All in all it's just another...

As part of my effort to blog better, the next step is to become more consistent in my schedule. Ideally, I'd like to blog daily. I'm not sure that's realistic. But perhaps I can make it 3 times a week.

My original idea for the blog was to split it into three parts, and I'm going back to that - Rev. Mc. Gator. In other words, the blog will be roughly 1/3 about things that relate to my work and worship (Rev), 1/3 about things related to my family (Mc), and 1/3 related to my leisure and interests (Gator).

Things will overlap. In fact, my next post will relate to all three areas. And so will the next one after that. But that's the plan. Roughly.