2009-02-08 08:52
Posted in iPod-Stuff by Jeff Thorsett
In my recent obsession to find the perfect chess app for the iPod I discovered that pretty much all of the applications could either play online or be really challenging chess engines – never both. Anyway I picked up the free application Chess With Friends as an introduction to the networked iPod chess world and convinced one of my wannabe chessmaster brothers to do the same. It is a great little application. Starting a game is easy and the interface is pretty user friendly. It keeps a record of all the game’s moves and has little tiny icons that show what material has been captured. So far so good (I haven’t completed a game yet). One feature lacking is a chat of any sort, so we have had to resort to emailing trash talk. If you want a game, my email is “chess” at thorsett [dot] net
Lately I have been getting into the whole twitter scene, due to my light brewing schedule so far this winter. It is a great tool for Flagstaff Brewing Company to announce new beers on tap and whatever else we need to tell the community. There are countless apps in the appstore that deal with twitter, but very few were appealing and lacked the features I was looking for, until I found Tweetie.
For starters, Tweetie uses a nice, quick and visually appealing interface that fits in with native iPhone apps. Seems so much snappier than NatsuLion. Tweetie also beautifully implements hybrid positioning (XPS via Skyhook) for all of us GPS lacking iPod users. Tweetie’s “Nearby” feature can filter tweets from 2-100km pretty quickly. Twitter trends are also easy to monitor with Tweetie’s “Trends”. Always fun, and sometimes unexpected, to see what people are talking about in the twitter world. Handling multiple twitter accounts is a snap with Tweetie, as well as a bunch of other useful features. I don’t know if I would ever use anything else to waste hours twittering.
2008-10-19 12:28
Posted in iPod-Stuff by Jeff Thorsett
I have been putting off getting into the whole portable music device market for some time, and have had a pretty poor attitude towards iPods over the years, but finally succumbed to the latest offering from Apple. The new iPod Touch has enough things going for it to turn a blind eye to the lack of playable music formats Apple allows and other nagging negatives like iTunes. I bought the 16 GB version with 2.1 firmware for around the same price a 30GB iAudio X5L costs, which makes me sad, but the ability to add useful applications and surf to webapps specifically designed for the touch made it more appealing.
The wifi capability of the iPod Touch is really what made my final decision to purchase one. With the ability to stream Pandora in the brewhouse, there is never a need to battle the evil disc skipping stereo we use. The battery life with streaming music playing is drastically shortened, although I have not had an issue with running out while brewing (so > 7.5 hours). Now if Pandora would keep adding variety to their music and if you could do other tasks while streaming with their app, I think they would have a real winner.
There are of course tons of applications that vary in usefulness available in the iTunes app store. So far I have been using Sportacular for sport scores, FStream for streaming internet radio, and Lux Touch (a Risk game) for wasting time.
I have recently discovered a bunch of nice webapps for the iPod. These are basically websites that have been optimized for the iPod/iPhone and Safari on the device. One such application that I use is thinkpod. My broker (who seems to get most of my money these days) has been developing a relatively usable interface for trading on the iPod. Once thinkpod has the charting abilities that their other mobile platforms have, like thinkAnywhere, I will be using the iPod to continue my portfolio’s downward spiral.
Over the last couple weeks, I have been pretty pleased with the iPod Touch. I will post my findings of good apps/webapps here as I find them, and feel free to leave me some suggestions on what you people use.
In my recent obsession to find the perfect chess app for the iPod I discovered that pretty much all of the applications could either play online or be really challenging chess engines – never both. Anyway I picked up the free application Chess With Friends as an introduction to the networked iPod chess world and convinced one of my wannabe chessmaster brothers to do the same. It is a great little application. Starting a game is easy and the interface is pretty user friendly. It keeps a record of all the game’s moves and has little tiny icons that show what material has been captured. So far so good (I haven’t completed a game yet). One feature lacking is a chat of any sort, so we have had to resort to emailing trash talk. If you want a game, my email is “chess” at thorsett [dot] net
Lately I have been getting into the whole twitter scene, due to my light brewing schedule so far this winter. It is a great tool for Flagstaff Brewing Company to announce new beers on tap and whatever else we need to tell the community. There are countless apps in the appstore that deal with twitter, but very few were appealing and lacked the features I was looking for, until I found Tweetie.
For starters, Tweetie uses a nice, quick and visually appealing interface that fits in with native iPhone apps. Seems so much snappier than NatsuLion. Tweetie also beautifully implements hybrid positioning (XPS via Skyhook) for all of us GPS lacking iPod users. Tweetie’s “Nearby” feature can filter tweets from 2-100km pretty quickly. Twitter trends are also easy to monitor with Tweetie’s “Trends”. Always fun, and sometimes unexpected, to see what people are talking about in the twitter world. Handling multiple twitter accounts is a snap with Tweetie, as well as a bunch of other useful features. I don’t know if I would ever use anything else to waste hours twittering. 
