ryanize.com

I don’t normally consider myself to be a follower….but with it’s increased popularity, I’ve signed up for Twitter again. I was a member long ago…before it was cool. But because it wasn’t cool, it didn’t have all that it has now. Being able to search twitter is fascinating to me….real time information from the masses. And I’ve been drawn into following along with some of my favorite artists like Meiko and Joshua Radin.

One of the other things I love about Twitter now vs Twitter then is Twikini. It’s a Twitter application for my Windows Mobile phone and it works wonderfully. Its packed full of so many more features than other Twitter applications I’ve tried before.

Many only let you tweet text…lacking the ability to post an image. Twikini uses the Twitpic service to let you add images right from your phone. Another feature I like is the ability to have Twikini update my location by using the GPS. I hear my stalkers really love that feature.

So if you Tweet…and you have a Windows Mobile phone, I suggest Twikini. Which always brings to mind a picture of a Twitter bird in a bikini…they really need to use that as their logo.

I’ve made it easy for anyone that wants to stalk me! You can now view a map with my current location on it.

I got my hands on an update for my phone which now unlocks the GPS. Previously you could only use the GPS with Verizon’s VZ Navigator. A horrible piece of software that costs you $10 a month extra. Now with my GPS unlocked I can use any software I want.

To get my ‘live’ location I’ve signed up for Trackr. Their software runs on my phone, constantly checking my location via the GPS. It then uploads this information to Trackr’s server which then magically displays it on a Google map.

Pretty cool if you ask me. There are some other amazing features with Trackr that I’m excited to use. If you have friends that also use the service, you can setup Geo-fencing alerts. What that means is I can setup a rule that anytime one of my friends gets within 5 miles of my house (or my current location) they will send me a message letting me know I’ve got friends in the area.

If you are a Flickr user (I am not but might consider now), you can take photos and upload them to Flickr from the phone. Trackr then checks your Flickr account and if it finds any photos that are from the date and times that you are logging your location…it will display them on the map as well.

I’m sure some people will wonder why in the heck I would want anyone to know where my exactly location is at any time. Why not? I’m not doing anything so shady that I have to keep my location secret. If I do go to the strip club and I don’t want Mom knowing…I can just turn off the GPS.

Update: Well now after only a couple days with Trackr, I’m moving to Google Maps. Why? The biggest factor is that Trackr seems to prevent my phone from shutting off the screen. I have to do it manually. Since I’m not used to that, I keep leaving the phone on and the battery then dies way to fast.

I don’t have this problem with Google Maps. Yet the features aren’t as full. I can live without the Flickr integration but I did like that Trackr’s map would auto refresh and show my movement live. And Google’s map doesn’t let you scroll around.

I recently decided, after being a TiVo customer for 6 years, to cancel service for both of my TiVos and move to a new platform. Anyone who has read this site for awhile knows that I love my TiVo and I tell everyone that they should get one. I even have a TiVo sticker on the back of my Jeep. So why am I saying goodbye to TiVo?

Reason 1: The monthly fees. For two TiVos I am paying a monthly fee of $20. What does this monthly fee get me? It allows my TiVo to connect to their server and download the program guide data. That’s it! Sure if you ask TiVo they will list of every other feature as part of the benefits of this monthly fee. But it’s marketing spin. All the features (pausing TV, recording TV, transfering shows to another TiVo) stop working if you stop paying. You can’t use this device if you don’t pay for the service. I should still be able to use my TiVo without the program guide!

Reason 2: Advertisements! You would think if you paid $20 a month for a service that they wouldn’t need to also paste ads all over the interface. You would be wrong. TiVo has been slowly sneaking in more and more ads. Pause a show…an ad pops up over the paused screen. Finished watching a show…the ‘keep or delete’ dialog has an ad plastered there. On almost every page there is some little banner or blurbs for some product, movie release, or additional service. Hey TiVo…do you know why I got a TiVo. So I could easily record all my favorite shows, unlike a VCR, but also so I don’t have to be forced to watch commercials. But then you go and put ads all over my once ad-free TiVo.

Reason 3: The TiVo desktop. This is a piece of software that runs on your PC and allows the TiVo to read your music and picture files. It also allows the transfer of videos to and from the TiVo. The software has a huge issue, that is discussed in many user forums all over the internet. If you leave this software running all the time (as it was meant to be) it continues to slowly eat up your RAM until the PC is unusable until you reboot. I have seen update after update of this software, but it still has this huge memory leak. I have been forced to use a much older version to avoid this problem…which means I can’t take advantage of many of the new features. Fix the existing problems in your software before you start adding new features.

Reason 4: The interface is dated. I’ve been with TiVo for 6 years. Do you know how much the user interface has been updated? About a year ago they changed the font to make it more readable. How about thumbnails of my videos? How about the ability to play other video files without conversion? And why does playing music on a TiVo seem like an after thought? You can’t search, sort by artists, etc. It only lets you browse the folders as they are on the PC.

Not to mention, there is so much more this device could do. It’s just a PC…so why not give it more PC like features. Let me check my email, surf the web, view YouTube videos, use Instant Messenging all from my TV. With Windows Media Center, AppleTV and the cable company DVRs…there is a lot of competition to what used to be a market dominated by TiVo. That’s why they lost me….not because I hate TiVo. I loved it.

So what have I don’t in place of TiVo? I built a new PC with Windows Vista…which allows me to use the Windows Media Center feature built into Vista. I know what you are thinking…Vista sucks. If you disagree, tell me why in the comments. But every person I’ve asked says “I’ve heard it’s slow” or “I hear some software won’t work on it”. You know what I never hear? A first hand account of someone who has used Vista. It’s always “I heard it wasn’t good!”. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet…this whole post could be a flat out lie!

I have a lot of tech toys….an iPod, bluetooth headphones, a GPS, touchscreen phone….the list goes on and on. I like tech toys. But for all my technology, I still had a 19″ CRT monitor. You know, the big bulky kind that messes with the planet’s magnetic fields when you turn it on.

I recently moved and a buddy said to me that he was surprised that I still had such an old monitor. Then this Sunday night I was helping a friend with his website and he made the same comment.

Today everything changed.  I received a Best Buy gift card from my DSL provider, Qwest. I’m not really sure why but I did recently have a billing issue with them that had to be escalated in order to be resolved. Whatever the reason…I decided to go shopping.

Look what I got with it!  It was on sale for $190…so after tax I grabbed this big beautiful 22″ widescreen  for $150.  I don’t normally buy without doing some research but the sales rep told me I could return it for any reason within 30 days….so I figured I’d take the leap.

I’ve only had it setup for an hour now, but I love it.  It’s very clear and much sharper than my LCD at work.  It was looking a little washed out around the edges but then I found this setting called X-Contrast.  I turned it on and it looks so much better…and it seems to have activated a light sensor somewhere on the monitor because when my lights go out, the screen dims.

In case anyone is interested, it’s a Hannspree model HF229H.  I’ve never heard of Hannspress before but I did a quick check on my phone for reviews and saw a couple good comments online.

Now there is one more happy comment on the internet about Hannspree monitors….very affordable and very beautiful!

Still using Internet Explorer to browse the web? Or just ready to get the latest and greatest from Mozilla? Well Firefox 3 has released today. I’ve been using a beta version for awhile now and I’m quite happy with the improvements…especially the reduction in memory usage. If you haven’t tried Firefox before, download it today. No really…you have to do it within 24 hours of this post to help Firefox break a world record in the number of downloads of a single file in 24 hours.

Go now!

I’ve always made my own ring tones because the majority of sites that offer ring tones are a mess. Some require special software to be installed on your PC. Some are so unorganized you can’t find anything. I had one site where no matter what I searched for, the result was always “no matches”.

Today I discovered Zedge.

The interface is wonderful. Just click the big Play button on each ringtone to hear it…like an audio only version of youtube.com. And they have other things besides just ring tones. If you register and tell them your phone model, they will display wallpapers that fit your screen or offer themes that give your phone a whole new look. If you are in the mood to pimp out your cell, check out Zedge….I wasted hours there this morning.

I recently replaced my Motorola Q with the new Samsung i760 from Verizon. I know I’ve only had the Q for a few months, but as much as I loved having a phone that was also a PDA, the lack of touch screen drove me nuts. I honestly kept trying to ‘tap’ the screen…an old Palm habit I guess. So with all the talk about iPhones, I thought I’d write a post about my phone should someone be interested in an alternative touchscreen smartphone.

Of course the phone that everyone wants is an iPhone. But because it currently doesn’t allow the addition of 3rd party software, it just didn’t fit for me. I like having my Quicken, my grocery list, my internet radio and TV and my RSS feeds with me. You just can’t do that with the iPhone.

I do admit that the iPhone has an amazing interface and I wanted to copy a lot of the features and the look. This is my main screen, I just tap the application I want with my finger and I’m on my way to playing Sudoku, surfing the web or listening to my music.

If you look closely, there are 5 smaller icons just above the iPhone icons. These switch between different application tabs that give me quick access to all my programs.

All of my programs are right there at my finger tips. And a lot of them copy the same finger scrolling action that the iPhone has. Just a flick of my finger and I’m scrolling through my text messages, contacts or music.

As you see from the photos above, I have alot of applications. Google Maps you can’t live without. With the addition of a Bluetooth GPS receiver, Google Maps will even give me step by step directions anywhere I need to go. Weather is a must, especially in CO where the weather changes within minutes. The weather software even includes the ski report so I can decide if I go to work tomorrow or take a powder day.

This next image is the phone application, which isn’t bad but I want something sexier. I tried a copy of the iPhone dialer but the Mute button was in a bad place and I kept hitting it with my cheek when I was on a call. I’ll have to keep looking for a phone replacement. Finally, the music player I have on this phone has a nice interface with large cover art in the display.

And of course, ryanize.com as seen on my phone. Yes, this image is flipped…that’s because the i760 has a slide out keyboard, just open it up and the screen image rotates for use in landscape mode.

One of the coolest applications I have on my phone lets me use it as a webcam. It will connect to my PC through WiFi or the Verizon network and let me stream anything my phone sees to my website. I can literally be on the ski slopes and broadcast it to my website. The little webcam image in the sidebar is actually the last thing my phone ‘saw’.

There are a few things I would change about the phone. The green ‘Answer’ button and the red ‘Hang Up’ button are both in a weird spot. Being along the side of the phone, I’ve had the misfortune of hanging up a call while I’m in mid-sentence. Funny, girls don’t like it when you just hang up on them. I also wish there was an internal GPS for the phone but I’m looking into a Bluetooth GPS receiver, so I’ll have that function at some point.

All in all I love this phone. I’m constantly trying out new software for it, which is part of the fun for me. You can’t do much tweaking to the iPhone, but my i760 can do so much, you could play with it for days and still have lots more to do.

If you are looking into getting a smartphone I highly recommend the Samsung i760…it’s an amazing phone that does things the iPhone hasn’t even thought about it.