Category Archives: Gadgets & Apps

All posts that don’t obviously fit in one of the sub-categories go here.

LibraryThing (update)

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Screen Shot 2016-06-20 at 11.09.48 AMI started using LibraryThing to manage my library in 2005, about a month after the service launched. I was using a spreadsheet for this task but quickly fell in love with the tools and features LibraryThing provided. I find their smartphone app very handy.

I have 740 titles in my LibraryThing long ago gave away most of the books. Someone calling themselves eandino2012 has more than 81 thousand titles in her/his LibraryThing.

If you’ve considered using a service like LT or Goodreads but dreaded the task of uploading all your book titles, LT has a good import tool (see below) and their smartphone app can scan ISBN barcodes. Neither of those were around back in 2005 so I entered mine one at a time.
import

LT does some fun stuff (total cubic feet of your books; how high if stacked, etc) and some useful (to me) stuff: list of all characters in the books in your LT.

height characters

I know of no better use of my time than reading. Books are important to me. LibraryThing is a way to extend the pleasure I get from books.

iPhone SE: Something smaller in my pants

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iphone6SI purchased the iPhone 6 in September of 2014 and traded it in for the 6S a year later. Now, just seven months later, I’m trading up/down/over for the new iPhone SE. The review below touches on most of my reasons. I always liked the smaller versions of the iPhone but they kept putting must-have (for me) features in the larger phones. With the SE, I can get those features in a smaller phone better suited to my Trump-like hands. But the change that sealed the deal for me was putting the on-off switch back on the top of the phone… WHERE IT BELONGS! A day doesn’t go buy that I don’t accidentally turn my phone off while adjusting the volume (see image below).

I thought the days of smaller (perfect) phones were forever gone. Thank you, Apple. Here’s some more money. This review mirrors my thinking on this.

Ruckus Cruiser

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ruckus-bike

“The cool bike is a throwback to when time moved slower and bicycles were fun things meant to take you to a happier place. The extra-long custom lounge seat with room to fit another passenger brings the social back to bicycling. Available with drivetrain options that include one with an electric motor.”

UPDATE: Someone just pointed out this bike is priced at $1,000. Hardly the bike for everyman. Nevermind.

SALT Gun

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Last fall I came across a story (and video) about the SALT Gun, a non-lethal home defense weapon. Think of a paint-ball gun except the balls are filled with some combination of chemicals that incapacitates. This video is what persuaded me to order one of these. And I like the idea of a weapon that won’t kill my drunken next door neighbor if he stumbles into the wrong house at 3 a.m.

After reading the operations manual and handling the gun for a bit, I decided to return it. (The company has a 30 day return policy.) Here are a few of the reasons I decided not to keep the gun. First, from the ops manual:

Pressurize the SALT Gun only when it will be immediately used.
At 2:00 a.m., in the dark, with a stranger in the house… will my wife remember this extra step?

Firing the SALT Gun – Eye protection must be worn by the user.
I’m guessing this something they have to put in the operations manual but it raises the question: Is this device save for my wife to use? Must she keep safety glasses with the gun?

I found the Trigger Safety Button hard to operate. Had to push very hard and fiddle with it to move it to either position.

And finally, I found the gun bulky, a bit heavy for a woman and generally unwieldy. This might be the perfect solution for some… but not for us.

Tim Cook: “We believe the future of TV is apps”

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Apple CEO Tim Cook said that during the announcement of the latest version of Apple TV back in September. I didn’t give it much thought at the time but after using apps on the TV for a few days, I’m starting to get a sense of what he was talking about. Not sure I can describe it in any useful way.

Back in the 50s we had two or three channels and everything came through one of them (in real time). Cable brought us more pipes but you had to be watching the right pipe at the right time to see what you wanted (or what the network wanted you to see). VCRs and (later) DVRs allowed us to time shift and skip commercials but its was still a channels-of-programs world.

The iPhone introduced the concept of apps. The New York Times has an app; ESPN has an app; all gods children got an app. Now the world is mobile and apps is where it’s at.

reutersTVThis is where I was going to try to describe how “apps for the TV” delivers a fundamentally different experience than the current TV model but I don’t think I’m up to the task. I know it’s a cliche but you’ll just have to play with for a bit get it. But I do have one example.

The new (4th generation) Apple TV comes with an app for Reuters TV. You can watch individual stories (Trump on SNL) or categories (World News). Or you can let the app build a “newscast” for you. Tell it how much time you have (5, 15, 30 minutes) and it does the rest.

I’ve been impressed with the few of these I’ve watched. No high profile anchors and no famous network correspondents. I’m reminded of the early days of CNN Headline News with anonymous (but competent) reports told you what was happening. The reporters I’ve watched on Reuters TV are not slick or polished but they get the job done and the story is clearly more important than the people reporting.

The production values are excellent, they’ve just done away with a lot of the shit (glitzy graphics, etc) the networks have piled on over the years. And it’s rare to see an NBC newscast without at least one “story” promoting the network (“More on the TODAY SHOW tomorrow morning…”).

Reuters TV did toss in a couple of 10 second (?) ads but they were not intrusive and they weren’t aimed at the 65+ demo.

So, if I get home in the middle of the afternoon and want a summary of news, Reuters TV can give me what I want; the length I want; when I want it. On my new big screen TV. Apps do this well. Far better than networks and cable channels.

As I get more comfortable with TV = apps I’ll take another stab at describing this. I’d be very interested in hearing from others using the latests version of Apple TV.

Shirt Pocket Video

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The video above runs about 50 seconds and was recorded with my iPhone in my shirt pocket. I got the idea from this from the 2013 Spike Jonze move, Her (Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson).

There are times when I would like to record video … discreetly. Some folks — even in very public places — get all goofy about being recorded. (See Google Glass).

While the iPhone looks quite natural in my shirt pocket, the vertical orientation results in the clueless video the rest of the world thinks is okay. But my new iPhone 6S records 4K which allowed me to crop and wind up with the CORRECT aspect ratio.

Walking results in pretty bad video but once standing still, it’s pretty good. Same for the audio.

Radio dial just too small

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podcastsBeen thinking some more about broadcasters lobbying for mobile carriers to turn on the FM receiver chip in phones. Never gonna work. Radio dial just too small. A little back-story:

Since getting my first iPhone several years ago, I’ve always listened to music with earbuds when in the car. The 4Runner didn’t have a good way to interface and I just never bothered when I got the MINI. Apple Music has me listening more these days so I purchased an aux cable to play iPhone music through the MINI speakers.

Lo and behold! The MINI has really good speakers. Way better experience than the earbuds. (Yes, everybody told me that) Anyway, back to the radio dial…

With the unlimited data plan (ATT) on my phone, I can listen to (almost) all the music there is. And the playlists. And the customized “stations”… as well as the half-dozen podcasts I follow.

“Hey, Siri. Podcast. Tech News Today.” Voila!

No radio station can match this. ALL the radio stations can’t match this.

Recall? What recall?

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While getting my car serviced (at the MINI dealership in St. Louis) earlier this week I mentioned the Takata airbag recall and the young man at the part window got puzzled look on his face.

“You’ve heard about the exploding airbag canisters and the big recall, right?

Nope, he insisted. He hadn’t heard about any airbag recall. About that time another young man came up to the next part window so I asked him. Same response. Had no idea what I was referring to.

I’m certain they weren’t fucking with me. Somehow they had missed seeing/hearing/reading _anything_ about this long-running story. I find that amazing.

Unless I’m missing something here, this means these two men could not have watched a network or cable newscast, read a newspaper, or spent 2 minutes on an online news site for the past 6 months (longer?).

How is that possible? And what else is going on in the world about which these young men are oblivious? I assume they’re on Facebook and would have seem some reference to this story there. No?