Steve Fischer's Random Blog

Category: Technology

  • My Next Phone?

    Probably…

  • A Dollar Too Much

    Nice headline from John Gruber today.

  • iPhone GPS is lame?

    I installed Runtastic on my Incredible. It’s a very good running app. Nice Google Maps of your runs, good splits, altitude stats, you can upload to their website and the basic version is free.

    So my wife installed it on her brand new iPhone. The app works great. But the GPS is flagrantly off. By about a half a mile per run.

    These are runs where we know the real mileage. We can do it on walkjogrun.net to check. And the iPhone is just flat out wrong. The map looks right, but the mileage is wrong.

    At least it adds a half mile to the run as opposed to the opposite. Maybe this is all a part of the great Apple user experience…

  • Fractured Fairy Tales

    Danielle loves her new Kindle Fire. We were already Amazon Prime members, so she can stream any of the videos and TV shows from Amazon Prime for free.

    Frankly, I checked out the lineup prior to buying the Kindle and wasn’t that impressed (especially for year old tastes), so this wasn’t a huge selling point.

    But Danielle checked it out and found something called Fractured Fairy Tales. They are basically short cartoons that are silly versions of the classic fairy tale stories. She loves them. Bonus.

    Of course, now Victoria wants to watch them on my Kindle. So I set it up and watch the beginning with her. As I watch the beginning it dawns on my that I know these cartoons.

    They came from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon. I saw those when I was a kid (and they were old then).

    So here’s my 9 and 5 year olds, streaming 50 year old video to their brand new Kindles.

    Technology rocks…

  • Fire

    No time for a full review, but Danielle and I both got the Kindle Fire for our birthdays. We both love it. Love it.

    Yes, there are quibbles. The iPad is better.

    But this is a $200 piece of joy…

  • Gorgeous

    Some spectacular video of Aurora Borealis and more taken from the international space station.

  • This can’t be good…

    This will be a business school case study someday of how to run a hugely successful tech company into the ground…

  • Nook vs. Fire

    So to me the choice between the Nook Color and the Kindle Fire is an easy choice. But Danielle turns 9 this week. She’s a good reader. She’s been asking for an eReader. We like reading and want to encourage it. While a tad expensive, when you add up all the crap we’d normally get her for her birthday, it isn’t that much more.

    So she’s been wanting the Nook Color. It’s the only existing color eReader that has apps.

    Now I also want an eReader for my birthday, which is a week later. Instant gratification is not a big deal to me. So the Kindle Fire is an easy choice for me (won’t ship until 11/15). There’s just no way Barnes and Noble can compete with Amazon as an Android platform.

    So prior to getting the Nook I’ve been doing the research. And the B&N App store is, well, lame. It’s a tiny subset of the Amazon store and has almost none of the free stuff (when Amazon does a different free app every day).

    So today, three days before her birthday, I have the discussion. How do you explain technology platforms to an almost nine year old? But there was one clincher. I had put a free texting app on her iTouch (her odds of getting a cell phone anytime soon are negative). It’s not like she actually has people to text. I asked her, “who are you going to text?”.  “You and Mami”. So for a day, she sent me text messages every five minutes.

    That app is available for the Fire. There are no text messaging apps for the Nook.

    Sold.

    So she’ll have to wait two weeks for her birthday present. For a nine year old, reasonably impressive delayed gratification.

    Long term, she’ll be happier. Sorry Barnes and Noble…

  • Super Cool Roosevelt Island

    Obviously these are just preliminary plans by Bloomberg trying to get tech industry in NYC. But wow, this would be so cool for Roosevelt Island.

  • Camtasia

    I really need to give proper credit to a tool I’ve been using for years. Every video on Origami’s video site was produced using Camtasia Studio.

    The key to Camtasia has always been that they nailed the sweet spot between ease of use and the ability to produce good quality videos. We aren’t talking professional grade here. But we are talking about hours to make, not days and a price within any company’s budget.

    So belated thanks to TechSmith for an excellent product.