A Great Blog

Μια προσευχή για τα νεκρά podcast

2010-07-29T17:40:00.002-04:00

Τις προάλλες άνοιξα το iTunes στον υπολογιστή στο σπίτι μου - πράγμα που δεν κάνω συχνά επειδή κατεβάζω podcast από το iPod Touch μου, και είδα πως είχα podcast τα οποία είχα ξεχάσει - τα κατέβασα και τα συγχρόνισα με το iPod μου. Είδα επίσης πως είχα πολλά podcast τα οποία ήταν νεκρά, τα οποία είχαν ένα, δύο, τρία επεισόδια και μετά τίποτα.

Το ξέρω πως το να κάνεις podcast είναι μια χρονοβόρα διαδικασία. Άντε μια ώρα να κάτσεις να μιλήσεις, άντε άλλη μια να διαλέξεις μουσική (αν έχεις μουσική), άντε και άλλη μια να κάτσεις να μιξάρεις τα tracks, περνάει η ώρα. Τις παλιές καλές μέρες που έκανα μουσικά μίξ, ένα τριαντάλεπτο μίξ μου έπαιρνε κάνα δίωρο να το κάνω (με MacOS 9 παρακαλώ ;-) ). Εδώ και καιρό θέλω να κάνω podcast αλλά δεν έχω χρόνο (από Δεκέμβρη που αποφοιτώ βλέπουμε και πράττουμε) οπότε το καταλαβαίνω αν δεν έχεις χρόνο να κάνεις podcast συχνά, αλλά ρε φίλε, αν δεν έχεις χρόνο μην αρχίζεις. Κάνεις ένα podcast με ενδιαφέρον θεματολογία και μας το κόβεις μετά από 2 επεισόδια; Μας το κόβεις πάνω στο καλύτερο :-)

Παρεμπιπτόντως, ενδιαφέρετε κανείς για ελληνικό podcast με θεματολογία γλωσσική, εκπαιδευτική ή παιδαγωγικής τεχνολογίας; Αν ναι, σκέφτομαι να αρχίσω ένα μετα την εξεταστική μου τον Δεκέμβρη - αφήστε σχόλιο αν θέλετε να είστε συμπαρουσιαστής :-)

Audible iOS app is good!

2010-07-28T17:14:00.002-04:00

A week or so ago I heard on one of the TWiT Podcasts that audible had an audible application for the iPhone out. Now over the years I've bought many Free audible books. They go on sale, or there is a special promotion going on and the books are free. These are automatically downloaded and added to my iTunes library. I don't have them automatically synced however because I don't plan on listening to them right away, and when I do want to listen to them they are backed up on some disc because I ran out of hard drive space and needed to clear things out ;-) Thus I never get to listen to the audiobooks I got for free.

Well, this is a problem no more! Whenever I get an audiobook from audible it's on my account - I can access my account via the audible app, and download on-demand straight to my iPod touch or iPhone! My entire purchase library is there, so no need to look back through backup discs of older purchases :) I'm currently in the process of listening to Free. Interesting book, not entirely new to me, but still interesting none the less!

My only wish: I wish I were able to import my one iTunes purchase: jPod the audiobook. Audible provides iTunes with their audiobooks, so it should be doable, no?

Assassin's Creed II Weekend

2010-07-27T17:27:00.002-04:00

This past weekend was a bit of an overdose on Assassin's Creed II - even though I did not spend the whole weekend playing it! The game just sucked me in! I have to say that it is definitely an improvement over the first Assassin's Creed - which I loved - and I just realized that even though I've put in 20 hours playing this game (over the past couple of weeks), I still have a long way to go! - probably because I am indulging in completing a lot of the side missions.

In any case, what I like about this game (and what I find frustrating at times) is the puzzle aspects of the game - the find-the-glyph-and-solve-the-puzzle, the price of persia-esque environment puzzles, and the new weaponry - not to mention the fact that I can upgrade weapons, armor and clothing! There is also a sim-city aspect to the game where you are supposed to go back to the Villa every now-and-again (usually every 1.5-2 hours of game play) to collect money and upgrade the small ancestral city's infrastructure.

It's a great game, the only critique that I have is that the AI of the enemies is a little weak at times. I did a mission to assassinate some monk that went over to the dark side (the templar side), and after I took out all the guards in the monastery and stood in front of the abbey doors so he could not escape, he just stood there! I walked up and staked him! He didn't even grovel or run away! Now when the guards were alive, he ran like crazy (it seemed) and made it to the abbey a few times, but take out the guards and he is helpless. Seems to me like he could have been a little more in fear for his life.

Oh well, nice game! Still have only scratched the surface!

You're in the Matrix Now Mr. Phelps!

2010-07-26T17:24:00.008-04:00

OK, I've mixed my movie metaphors a bit - Mission Impossible, the Matrix, James Bond, but it's all in good fun. Last night I was out at the movie theater to view Inception. The movie was a couple of hours long and I was getting a bit twitchy by the end, but it actually went by quite fast!

I really liked the movie, It was like the Matrix had a mash up with Mission Impossible, Life on Mars and Hustle! The main premise is that people's dreams can be invaded, and since our brain does not expect external elements to be there our secrets are more vulnerable. So a team of "dream experts" sets up a multidream con - a dream within a dream within a dream type of thing in order to plant an idea into someone's head and make them thing that it was theirs to begin with (hmmm... have they ever heard of hypnosis?) and the target's mind starts attacking them (so each and every one of us has a Mr. Smith protecting us LOL). In any case, the movie was a thrill ride!

Of course I was thinking of the medical implications of such a technology. Imagine having been diagnosed with a terminal disease. If you go into a dream state you can live a full, and happy, life in your head - maybe they will come up with a medical series based on this concept ;-)

Definitely go see it on the big screen!

Wither the PDA?

2010-07-23T17:30:00.046-04:00

I was reading this post yesterday on ProfHacker, and the author was asking where are the PDAs in today's smartphone world? PDAs...you know! Those pieces of technology from the mid-to-late 90s that were not connected to the internet and held information like your addressbook, calendar, notepad (and of course the games!). The author is contemplating getting an iPod Touch and a cheap, voice-only, cell phone to go along with it (and use the WiFi on the iPod) instead of getting an all-in-one smartphone with a data plan.

I used to be a cell-phone + PDA user, but that was a long time ago. I owned (and still do) an Apple Newton 2100 which I had tricked out, I had an external keyboard, I had installed a 5 language dictionary (which came in handy for my language classes), an Office Suite, games and much more. I also used an old school Nokia GSM phone on OmniPoint/VoiceStream.

Don't get me wrong, I really loved my Newton, but once the SonyEricsson P800 came along things changed a bit. Since the SonyEricsson supported Greek (and my Newton did not), I started using my P800 for all my contacts and calendar items. I not longer had to use the latin alphabet to write in Greek which was pretty cool and I could sync via bluetooth with my Mac once a day so anything I added on the phone was on my Mac and vice versa. I still used my Newton every now and again but not with much regularity. For a while before the P800 I also dabbled with an iPaq running Windows Mobile (*shivers*) + a SonyEricsson T68i but I essentially came to the conclusion that (1) Windows Mobile was awful and (2) trying to tether my phone to my iPaq was a nightmare! The P800 won out!

So what about now? I have an iPod Touch, and before my iPhone purchase I used it with a Nokia N80. Now the Nokia N80 was a smartphone in its own right, but the iPod had a bigger screen with which to browse the web, and a bigger keyboard with which to reply to emails with. I too was of the opinion that I am blanketed by WiFi so I did not need to spring for a data plan (I was kind of resentful in the beginning that I had to!) - but after about eight months of testing out the WiFi situation and comparing that to my iPhone use, I saw "data plan all the way!"

Here's why:
Yes, at home I've got unrestricted WiFi but that isn't the case everywhere I go. At work there is a lot of port blocking going on, so even though I am on WiFi all day, the email client won't send or receive emails, there is a log-on procedure to even get online, and at times the network is as slow as molasses (I think things like Last.fm are also blocked). On the commuter rail there is free WiFi but that can be slow (on the plus side mail ports are not blocked) and finally around town there are pockets of free wifi but you really have to be stationary to use them.

In contrast, with a data plan I can be on the move, I don't have to worry about important ports being blocked and I can use the GPS and Maps to figure out not only where I am but also where I am going. With apps like Dropbox, MobileMe's sync to the cloud and Evernote, I don't have to worry about my data. I can be assured that it's there when I need it, without synching to a computer, and if my device gets lost before I get home, I don't have to worry about a day's worth of data entry going down the toilet - it's just magically synced to the net. :-)

So where is the PDA? My iPaq was recycled many years ago and the Newton is on a display shelf - I take it out every not and again to remember the good ol' days - but that's it. Viva le smartphone! :-)

Floppy drive w/ legs!

2010-07-21T17:23:00.001-04:00

Well, this is retro!

A floppy drive that grows some legs to avoid spilling liquids (that invade from the bottom - top invading liquids are still a problem) ;-)

I haven't used a floppy disk or a floppy drive in close to 10 years now so I took this to be more of an art installation rather than something of actual use :-)

Floppy Legs Portable Hard Drive from James Chambers on Vimeo.

Πάμε στο μουσείο!

2010-07-20T17:35:00.006-04:00

Αυτό το περασμένο σαββατοκύριακο είπαμε να πάμε στο τοπικό μας μουσείο να δούμε επιτέλους την έκθεση τέχνης των Μάγια. Στο τσακ το προλάβαμε γιατί αυτό το σαββατοκύριακο ήταν το τελευταίο σαββατοκύριακο το οποίο ήταν στημένη η συγκεκριμένη έκθεση.

Μπορώ να πω πως μου αρέσει αρκετά η τέχνη των πολιτισμών την κεντρικής Αμερικής, και η γλώσσα είναι κάτι αρκετά ενδιαφέρων επίσης αλλά είναι λίγο δύσκολο μερικές φορές να βγάλεις άκρη όταν βλέπεις εικόνες σε διάφορα πήλινα σκεύη ή σε διάφορα γλυπτά. Αν είσαι συνηθισμένος σε ένα ελληνορωμαϊκό (ή ευρωπαϊκό) τρόπο να καταλαβαίνεις την εικονογραφία μια τέχνης πρέπει πραγματικά να κάνεις ένα βήμα πίσω για να δεις τι συμβαίνει σε μια σκηνή πάνω σε ένα πιάτο ή ένα γλυπτό των Μάγια.

Το μόνο που ήταν πραγματικά εύκολο να καταλάβεις ήταν μια τοιχογραφία (απόσπασμα της εικόνας στα δεξιά) που έδειχνε μια σκηνή καθημερινότητας Αρκετά ενδιαφέρον έκθεση. Τώρα πρέπει να επιστρέψουμε ξανά στο μουσείο να δούμε την έκθεση τέχνης από την Ινδία (νομίζω κάποιος συγκεκριμένος θεός και οι απεικονίσεις του)

Movie (procrastination) weekend

2010-07-19T17:55:00.004-04:00

I love summer! I can actually kick back on the weekend, without any homework and just enjoy the weather (or a movie). This past weekend was a movie weekend (to the detriment of house chores - oh well!) In any case, here is a brief overview:

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra: this wasn't a bad movie - I was expecting it to be far worse than it actually was. Yeah sure there may have been a couple of plot holes here and there, but it was full of action and things going BOOM that it made for a nice movie. Now I never really paid much attention to the comic-book and animated series universe of GI Joe (I did when I was a kid, but I wasn't a die hard fanboy) so this is most likely a disappointing movie for the fanboy.

2012: This was the "WTF movie" of the weekend. If was people driving through buildings, flying in-between falling buildings, escaping flying fireballs and so on. It was a disaster movie through and through and at 2.5 hours it was a thrill ride - a WTF thrill ride, but a thrill ride none the less.

The Linguists: This documentary was both inspiring and depressing at the same time. It followed these two linguists (one of which is the author of when languages die) on a quest to document some of the world's dying languages. The inspiring part was that these two white guys were interested enough in the linguistic heritage of this planet to go out and find the few speakers of these dying languages to record them and their language. The depressing part is being confronted, yet again, with the devastating aftermath of linguistic (and other types) of hegemony where people are made to feel like their language and culture is of little value in our go-go-go world.

The Village Barbershop: This is one of those "feel good" movies about the little guy, the major a-hole, change and renewal. This was quite a good movie - lots of LOL moments and moments where you root for the underdog.

The Social Network movie

2010-07-18T10:16:00.003-04:00

When I first saw this title, initially I thought that it was a "scary movie" type of movie - boy was I wrong. It's a movie about FaceBook and it looks pretty bad - well pretty bad in terms that it is actually based on actual events.

** shivers **

Assassin's Creed based comic book coming

2010-07-17T10:13:00.001-04:00

Well, according to Joystiq an Assassin's Creed comic book story is coming along, and from this video it seems like it's based in the USSR.

I have to say that I am becoming a fan of the series!

The Old Spice guy - Libraries

2010-07-16T17:31:00.002-04:00

Pretty funny public service announcement from the Old Spice "spokesperson" about libraries

Περί ποδηλάτων και κλειδαριών

2010-07-15T17:10:00.001-04:00

Πρόσφατα η σύζυγος αγόρασε ένα καινούργιο ποδήλατο και μ’ έχει βάλει σε σκέψεις να αγοράσω και εγώ ένα. Από τότε που τελείωσα το λύκειο (12 χρόνια!) δεν έχω ποδήλατο. Το θέμα δεν είναι αυτό όμως. Αυτό που μου έκανε εντύπωση ήταν το ότι το ποδήλατο ήρθε με σέλα που μπορείς να την βγάλεις εύκολα και μπροστινή ρόδα που βγαίνει εύκολα για να την πάρεις μαζί σου. Όταν είχα ποδήλατο στην Ελλάδα (μέχρι και το 2000) ούτε σέλα έπαιρνα μαζί μου όταν άφηνα το ποδήλατο αλλά ούτε και κλειδαριά δεν είχα!

Πραγματικά, κάθε μέρα έκανα 15-20 χιλιόμετρα ποδηλασία πηγαίνοντας σε καφετέριες (μιλάμε για καλοκαίρι τώρα), παραλίες, σε σπίτια φίλων, σε σούπερ μάρκετ και ποτέ δεν κλείδωνα το ποδήλατο και πολλές φορές το άφηνα σε μέρος που ήταν μακριά μου και ώρες ώρες δεν φαινόταν. Φυσικά όταν έμπαινα σε κτήρια όπως το σούπερ μάρκετ το άφηνα μόνο του για τουλάχιστον `10 λεπτά και πάντα όταν επέστρεφα ήταν εκεί!

Αναρωτιέμαι λοιπόν αν ήμουν τυχερός που δεν μου το βούτηξε κανένας το ποδήλατο, ή αν πραγματικά πριν δέκα χρόνια στην Ελλάδα (συγκεκριμένα στην Αμαλιάδα) τα πράγματα ήταν πιο χαλαρά και μπορούσες να εμπιστευτείς τον συνάνθρωπό σου. Εσείς τι λέτε; Αν είστε στην Ελλάδα, αφήνετε το ποδήλατο στον δρόμο ξεκλείδωτο ή όχι; Αν είστε στο εξωτερικό, που είστε και τι κάνετε με τα ποδήλατα σας;

The IT Crowd game

2010-07-14T17:29:00.011-04:00

A friend of mine emailed me a link to this game based on the hit UK series the IT Crowd.

The game was pretty entertaining, but I think I wouldn't sit at my computer to play a browser game like this (who's got time?) I echo some of the responses left as comments: Do make an iPhone game out of this! :-)

If you don't know what IT crowd is, catch up with it here: Seasons 1 through 3 (and Season 4 is now on TV)

Blackberry 6 going after the consumer

2010-07-13T17:04:00.005-04:00

I saw this video the other day of the BlackBerry OS version 6 on the net. The two things that stroke me were (1) the non-enterprise-ness of the features shown off, and (2) the complete reliance on touch-screens. I do wonder if this means that Blackberry is going after that "fatty middle" that Palm was going after while still keeping a foot in the enterprise market.

When RIM announced that they bought off QNX, I was thinking that they would resurrect the eQip project :) I remember wanting to run this OS on my iPaq back in the day, but my iPaq was too new to run the OS...I ended up giving up Windows Mobile and went to linux instead ;-)

Twitter annoyances - oy!

2010-07-12T17:13:00.001-04:00

Quick! What do the following (made up) tweets have in common?

The #weekend was #awesome #club #night #drinks #fun #mexican #margarita #music

Great resources for eBooks http://is.gde/books #training #HR #reference #instructionalDesign #us #eu #asia #elearning #freebooks #Edtech #onlinelearning #education

Human Resource Departments changing the way they do evaluations http://hrvrd.go/cea4f #HR #Evaluations #employment #benefits #us #japan #KM #DK #IM #joem

OK, the answer is that there are more hashtags than there is actual content! Even in the third case when you have a lot of content (well, comparatively) you are still having an overkill of hastags. I mean what's the use? It makes your tweet SO MUCH HARDER TO READ and it ultimately makes people less likely to follow you! Are you so concerned about the SEO of your tweets that you must put all those hashtags in? Just focus on content and people will not only retweet you and thus raise your cred, but you'll come up in searches because you'll have more content! That's not hard to understand :) Don't dilute your content with hashtags!

The other issue that's come up is overdoing it with the unfollowing and letting us know about it! Here is a sample:

I just unfollowed @joeSchmoe right back. Thanks to #STUPIDSERVICE for showing me quitters! http://stupidservice.com

Seriously? Is this an information sharing service (twitter I mean) or some sort of high school bitching-fest where you aren't going to talk to Joe Schmoe anymore because he didn't pass that paper not to Mike Schmoe last period? No one is required to follow you back if you follow them. If you don't have content they want, why the heck would they ever follow you?

Has anyone written a twitter etiquette book? :) I think we are in need of one! STAT!:)

If video games had a super easy mode

2010-07-10T09:21:00.000-04:00

I wasn't sure what to make of College Humor in the early days, but lately they've had some pretty funny videos :-) If video games had a super easy mode they would be super boring - but it makes for good humor

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Social profiles living on after a person's death - some thoughts

2010-07-09T17:41:00.001-04:00

A while back I read this post (I wish I could remember the link) about Facebook suggesting that he reconnect with his friend but there was one gotcha in this situation - his friend had passed away a number of months ago - therefore even if this person tried to "reconnect" it would be a one-way conversation (unless they enlisted the help of medium).

In any case, this got me thinking. These days we've got a ton of information, personal information online. If you use facebook, twitter, flickr, youtube and so on to post your photos, to post videos, status updates, and comment or like or dislike things, we've got an idea of what someone is up to based on the shows, books, music they like and dislike, the comments they make and the friends they keep. If you use things like foursquare and gowalla people can get an even better idea about you - and once you start blogging - well, then you're even more exposed (I guess I am a glass half full on this trifecta).

If such services continue to exist, or at least if they get archived (like twitter is) by some national or international authority, then the research potential is HUGE. Right now historians will be able to use twitter for example to see what the zeitgeist is in a particular period in time. This data has generally not been available unless filtered through some authority - newspapers, local historians or local-little-known writers. This technology allows future historians to see what a segment of society thought and said about certain things, but it also allows one to examine the life of a famous person, many years after they are gone.

This of course poses a problem. Let's say that I am an eccentric writer who becomes famous 100 years after my death and there is a revival to find out more about the life and times of me, the eccentric writer. By using facebook, twitter, blogs, and geolocation I could probably fabricate some reality which is really very far from my own reality, so on the surface future literature historians might get the wrong idea about me - because they've fallen for my eccentric view of reality. I guess where there is great power for knowledge, there is also great power for disinformation.

As I said...random thoughts...

Assassin's Creede | Complete!

2010-07-08T17:56:00.001-04:00

Well, this past weekend, after quite a few weeks of late nights and weekend game play, I completed the first Assassin's Creed for the XBOX. I'd heard a lot about this game, both on 1up and on G4 when it first came out, and I guess the game was a success because Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed Botherhood are already out for consoles! Not to mention of course the Nintendo DS, the PSP and the iPhone side stories.

I have to say that I really enjoyed the game, and its plot! I am really looking forward to playing all of the above mentioned Assassin's Creed sequels and side-plots - Now when is it becoming a movie :-) The one thing that was really new to me in this game (and I guess in every xbox game) is the notion of achievements. The last time I had a television console I was in middle school and I had a Super Nintendo (very retro, eh?). Even when I bought my PSP, the games didn't have Achievements to them. You just completed the game! I was browsing through my achievements, some of which I completed just by chance, and others by virtue of completing a mission. Seeing which achievements I have yet to attain, I am thinking about going back and trying to get achieve them. Some of the achievements (like pushing 50 drunkards out of the way, or pick-pocketing knives from thieves) are doable - if one has the patience to do them! The collect-the-flags achievements are achievements that I probably won't bother attempting. I have no interested in looking every-which-place to find saracen or richard flags just to get an achievement. M'eh. Some achievements seem to be there for those who are obsessive compulsive just to get them :-)

Anyway - great game! If you haven't played it, you should! :-)

There goes Symbian Guru!

2010-07-07T17:39:00.002-04:00

Well, along with the death of the KIN last week, another piece of shocking news came out about the closure of Symbian-Guru. I've known Ricky from my Moderator days over at Howard Forums, and I've been following him on twitter. Anyone who had won't be surprised at the distance between him and Nokia.

This morning I also listened to All About Symbian and they had some thoughts on the subject - interesting but few. I guess what describes me is a Nokia Fanboi in Exile (also an SonyEricsson Fanboi in Exile). Quite honestly I've used MANY Nokias and SE phones over the years, and I've wanted to make the transition to newer generation smartphones, but their hardware just stinks. The most common thing is the radio frequency - you can't really get quadband or quintband UMTS phones from these manufacturers (only exception is the upcoming N8 by Nokia), and most phones I've had from them are low on memory - quite a problem if you're coming from an iPhone :)

As far as Symbian goes, I like the OS - it just doesn't have the apps that I would love to use. I think that the iPhone was really spoiled me in that I expect to have non-browser based apps for RSS, music, and news. Yes I can go to a website, but the formatting is generally not that great. I think that Symbian really needs to have one unified app store for all the hardware manufacturers, and they need to get some app developers in to create the last.fm or pandoras of Symbian. I also think that HTC needs to get into the action and make some sweet hardware for this OS.

So Symbian-Guru is out, one less place for symbian news on the web, but it's not worth being frustrated by a device that you ultimately use for productivity purposes. You must use what works for you - which is why I use an iPhone :)

The Kin's dead! Long live the...

2010-07-06T17:30:00.001-04:00

well... I guess "long live Windows Phone 7" it is!

It surprised me that Microsoft killed the KIN last week, not because it was an awesome product, but because they took such little time between launch and cancellation (and apparently they sunk a quarter million dollars in ads). I guess we won't be finding out if what's-her-name has real friends on the road trip she is going on or if they are all just facebook friends LOL (see ad below)

Engadget has a blow-by-blow account of what went on with the KIN. It's an interesting read if you've got the time and have not read it yet. What I find really interesting is that someone decided to buy Danger (aka sidekick maker) and NOT blend the best of the HipTop with Windows Mobile to create something new and exciting. Instead they opted to go and make the KIN which was priced way too high for the market it was aiming for.

It seems to me that microsoft is in need of some organizational management.

Καλοκαιρινές βραδιές

2010-07-03T21:48:00.000-04:00

Το καλοκαίρι είναι η αγαπημένη μου εποχή. Ναι, μπορεί να κάνει αφόρητη ζέστη, μπορεί να χρειάζεσαι έρ κοντίσιον που και που, αλλά αυτά είναι μικροπράγματα επειδή το όφελος είναι τεράστιο!

Τι καλοκαίρι μπορείς πραγματικά να βγεις στο μπαλκόνι το βράδυ και να να αράξεις. Να κλείσεις τα φώτα, αν θες να ανάψεις κανένα κεράκι, και να κοιτάζεις τα άστρα - ή με ελαφριά μουσική, ή τελείως μουντά. Όπως και να είσαι έχει μια ωραία θέα που σε κάνει να ηρεμέις.

Κάτι τέτοια βράδια στο μπαλκόνι μου θυμίζουν καλοκαίρια στην Ελλάδα μαζί με καλούς φίλους και τους κολλητούς. Το μόνο που λείπει

-- Post From My iPhone

Java 4-ever

2010-07-01T17:38:00.000-04:00

A friend from work sent me this yesterday - I have to say for a parody trailer it's pretty well done! Now when is the movie coming out? ;-)

MediaFly demo over - lukewarm results

2010-06-30T17:24:00.005-04:00

Well, I gave MediaFly a once over this past week to see if it can replace me syncing with iTunes for my podcasts, or me having to remember all the podcasts I subscribe to so I can search for new episodes on iTunes on my iPod Touch (or iPhone). There were some good things, and some things that made using the app on the iPhone annoying as hell.

The thing that drove me to the app is the seamless integration between the website and the app itself. I can hop onto the website, create an account, import my OPML list of podcasts from iTunes and BAM - there's my stuff! I can the go organize the podcasts into folders on the web, and given a local client I can play it anywhere I am! Simple! I have to admit that the website was fairly easy to use - there were some hickups - like using a remote control for putting podcasts into "channels" as opposed to a "folder" but those are more or less frames of reference. The UI on the website could be improved, but it ain't horrible.

Most of my problems are with the iOS client, which have made me not want to use the service on my iOS devices. Here's a quick laundry list of major FAILs

The app seems to have problems with Enhanced Podcasts.
The app doesn't support background playback so when I hit the home button it goes silent.
The app doesn't remember which podcast I was playing when I quit the app, so when I go back I have to remember what I was listening to in order to continue listening to it.
The app does not support the "pause" functionality of apple's headset (this may be an apple limitation)
The app has NO WAY to delete 1 podcast that I listened to. There is a "purge all downloads" option which is useless - that's not the way I operate. I listen to a podcast, I delete it, I download X more, I don't download X, listen to all of them, purge all, then download X more.

There are also some minor UI fails that were annoying but easily fixed. The tab for instance that you tap on to reveal the playback buttons doesn't support drag-up and drag-down. I was confused as to why this tab wasn't coming up when I was dragging it. Some of the UI seems to be built for a mouse-based UI interaction while other UI elements seem to be somewhat thumb-touch-based.

The final thing that was kind of annoying was that audio playback didn't start up quickly enough. There was always lag between pressing "play" and the thing actually starting.

I feel like this app would be great if it left playback to Apple's built-in app, and it just handled the podcast retrieving and loading. For the time being I won't be using the app since it was just one huge aggravation (in-between listening to podcasts). It will however stay on my iOS devices as a reminder of what podcasts I've subscribed to, and to keep an eye out for future developments. It has potential, but the iOS client is just not there yet!

Αρχίσαμε τις προετοιμασίες!

2010-06-29T17:20:00.000-04:00

Άρχισα λοιπόν τις προετοιμασίες για τον Σεπτέμβρη! Άρχισα να σχεδιάζω το τι θα κάνω για την πρακτική στην γλωσσολογία (θα είμαι βοηθός καθηγητού αρχαίων ελληνικών). Έκανα μια μετατροπή των powerpoint της καθηγήτριας από μια παλιά γραμματοσειρά τύπου symbol σε unicode, ώστε να φαίνονται οι χαρακτήρες ανεξαρτήτως τις γραμματοσειράς - και αυτό πήρε αρκετές ώρες! Έπρεπε να ξαναεισάγω τα πάντα από την αρχή...

Τέλος πάντων, σήμερα στο τραίνο άρχισα να διαβάζω βιβλία και άρθρα για την ψυχογλωσσολογία και λέω να τελειώσω αυτή την ύλη πριν επιστρέψω στις προετοιμασίες για τα αρχαία.

Το μόνο κακό είναι πως με τις προετοιμασίες για τα μαθήματα έχω παραμελήσει μια μετάφραση που είπα πως θα κάνω για τα μαρτύρια της Άγιας Μαρίνας...αυτό μάλλον το σαββατοκύριακο το αρχίζω...μπίζι καλοκαίρι...

Weekend Technology WINs and FAILs

2010-06-28T17:44:00.014-04:00

Well, this past weekend I drop up to NH to visit my brother. The one time I wanted music on my iPhone (or iPod) and I didn't have it due to the whole "update ate my music" thing. I luckily had pandora, last.fm, slacker and a few downloaded podcasts that I could use! Driving up I noticed a few WINs in the iPhone/iOS 4 combo, as well as some FAILs.

First off, Last.fm is a major fail! I was hoping that with the iOS update for their iPhone App that they had that they would have enabled background playback - not! I started Last.fm and when I switched to Google Maps to see where I was going, the music stopped - FAIL

Luckily Pandora came to the rescue! Background Playback of music (listened to some music I never had heard before - broadened my musical horizons!) and Google Maps with GPS - Major WIN for Pandora!

One other thing I noticed was batter life. When I left home I had 100% battery and I plugged my phone into power when I got to the car. After 90 minutes driving, with both pandora and google maps (with GPS), my batter had gone down to 80%. What? But I am plugged in! Don't you suck enough juice from the power adapter to keep you at 100%? - FAIL!

I've also started using MediaFly this past weekend - more on this as the demo progresses.