Photos and Texts

My earlier blog entries were heavy on text not because I didn’t have photos (I had plenty) but because I didn’t find an easy way to post them and share them on the blogger editor. Eventually I got Windows Live Writer in 2010 [entry here] and it changed my entire blog experience. Just a quick look back at my pre-Writer blog entries will show you the difference.

[Exhibit A] 2009 April Archive had ten entries of entirely text! Who actually read this? What was I thinking?
[Exhibit B] 2012 June Archive showcased enough images and text to make it more enjoyable to read/browse through (ok, so I had to shuffle through some more months of text before I found a good example)

Before I dive into the technical stuff, please find your favorite music player (pandora/youtube/Spotify/LPs/whatever) and find Jimi Hendrix. I listened to his albums on Spotify for the few hours I spent on this blog entry. His music should be tagged energetic, inspiring, brilliant, motivational, virtuoso, colorful, the real thing.

Several Photo Options:

1) The Basics in Writer

Just click “Insert” Picture and then click on the picture to access Formatting options. Looks simple enough to get started? It totally is. No photoshop skills required for clean photo frames, resizing, and color effects. You can also easily add fancy things like watermarks.

When I started to blog about my west coast trip, I had wanted to share more photos to break up the long travel diary kind of entries. My usual use of frame/watermark/tilt functions became boring and made it necessary to explore a photo album or collage look.

2) Writer/SkyDrive

Luckily, Writer does have an extensive photo option and creates some very cool album arrangements.

 

 

 

 

The Writer/SkyDrive feature was easy enough for me and the Seattle Mt Si album [link] looked great, even on my iphone. There is nothing I love more than pages/features that are pre-formatted for mobile devices. Prior to blogger’s mobile support, I had to use some kind of web-to-mobile translation device. J. refused to read it because the format didn’t work on his phone. Now everything works beautifully.

One downside is you have to upload the photos into SkyDrive (Windows Cloud?) and without the app download, it’s impossible to change the orientation of photos automatically. I had uploaded a bunch of photos into Shutterfly and the orientation changed automatically. For some reason the photo album in Writer/SkyDrive does recognize the correct orientation but when I clicked into the album for individual pics, they are all original pics (without any correction for orientation). I also had to sign-in for my SkyDrive/Hotmail account before I can publish my blog entry with this built-in photo album. Was it worth all the trouble? I guess if you already have the hotmail account (I signed up long ago for MS messaging but later didn’t use it much) it’s not that bad. If you wanted to create photo album effects without Skydrive/Hotmail, I’m sure there are easy photo programs+some screenshots+html links that would do the same trick.

3) Shutterfly Post to Blogger / ShareSite to Blogger.

The pro for this option is that I already use Shutterfly anyway for photos (online and offline prints/books/projects). So creating a separate folder to post into Blogger is as easy as a few clicks. The downside is the embedded album is not visually pleasing like the photo album/collage function from Writer/SkyDrive. This goes for both the desktop and mobile versions of the blog.

Comparison of Regular Post to Blogger (front view is same, I’ve included screenshot of actual album after initial clicks)

http://azuleteats.blogspot.com/2012/10/2012-10-downtown.html

vs. ShareSite to Blogger

http://azuleteats.blogspot.com/2012/10/2012-10-downtown-to-uptown.html

I actually liked the ShareSite black album background. Still, I don’t like the layout enough to use this option unless I have a lot of photos.

Phone Adventures

Earlier in 2010 I wrote about my first smart phone (entry). As my plan is nearly up and I had an opportunity to check out new devices, I took a spin in the Verizon store with J. Kudos to him for giving me good advise on my first smart phone. For the second smart phone, I didn’t end up going with either suggestion (HTC Rezound or Razor Maxx). With all the hype around 4G phones and huge screens, I was joking that before long we’ll all be carrying ipads and using them as phones. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the Incredible but when it comes to new Droids, I just wasn’t all that impressed. So I ended up getting the iPhone 4S. No 4G, no droid, and no huge screens. It’s all good.

Since I’ve had the iPad for a while, I was already familiar with the setup of the iPhone (let’s face it, the phone/text part isn’t that hard). And since I had already started to clean up my google contacts (getting ready for switching from smart phone to smart phone), the contacts sync didn’t take too long either.

Things I miss from the droid:
-ringtones: I know this isn’t impossible but it just seems harder on an iPhone.
-music management: I’m awful with my iTunes music library and sync ever since I got my first iPod back in the days, so it’s been a lot of drag&drops with the SD card and amazon mp3 store with my droid. this led to my iPhone music library completely empty until i figure out the sync/org part. My iPhone has 1 song in it, from the free single of the week, no joke!
-contact search: while the iPhone contacts page does have a search bar at the top, it doesn’t allow for easy search using the numbers pad like droid. Fewer misdialing?
-better support for multiple calendars: I did find a few iPhone apps that take multiple google calendars but for now, I haven’t committed…
-different skins/themes. you know how you can do a “travel” skin with travel apps and “work” skin and “social” skin (at least with HTC)? yea, none of that…have to make do with the “folders” or limit my apps (which isn’t a bad thing).

Things I like from iphone:
-it’s the same as my ipad. ok, so this is not a plus if you haven’t used either the iphone or ipad before…
-imessage/text is much cooler.
-more fun apps that I’ve already had from my iPad. now I can take them on the go too!
-less confusing interface than some droid features.
-this is not really a big deal…but you do get better case selection for iPhones. I actually didn’t even bother with a case for the HTC. just went with a screen protector and that’s it. For the iPhone I got a red/black gradient hard rubber case with screen protector. May ditch the screen protector after a while since I’m not thrilled with it.
-Siri

IPad vs iPhone:
-facetime integration is better on the iphone
-Siri rocks. and apparently my English is not that bad (or they’ve improved it since rolling out)
-Zite looks 100 times better on iPad than iPhone. I suspect it’s the typography or the top bar showing the diff categories in the iphone version that makes it not as clean.
-I’m trying not to go overboard with copying the iPad apps since some apps are much better on ipad than iphone (i.e. Vevo or magazine apps).
-why is Muji Calendar free on ipad but not iphone? sigh.

Read my previous post on ipad reading apps.

Tech Review–eBook Apps and Readers

Half a year ago I wrote about the various new gadgets I’ve added to my life: kindle, ipad, and htc incredible smartphone [relevant entries near end]. A lot has happened since then, in technology and in my personal/work life. For one, I have my regular commute back, and it involves a lot of reading, sometimes paper, sometimes electronic.

This past Christmas I was also surprised to find out that many of my friends had gotten into the ebook trend. I knew it was going to be more accepted but didn’t realize just how quickly everything moves! I’ve reviewed a bunch of the more common ebook applications below, mostly focusing on the user experience.

eBook Apps on HTC Incredible (all from google android market):

1. nook [best display and web friendly]:
1. display: 5 font sizes, 4 colors for background (gotta love the one named “butter”), half a dozen or more fonts to pick from, brightness setting, margin settings, line spacing etc.
2. app home page: I really like the “reading now” button, which takes you straight to wherever you left off. “All Settings” button has most of the display related stuff.
3. in-book menu: very cluttered. kindle has all display related settings in one button. nook has 3 (font, brightness, all settings which has more). lookup works fine, includes search in dictionary/google/wiki.
4. shop/store: store front not quite as good as amazon but does its job. after you download sample you have to manually return to your library section to read it. amazon has one button from the store that takes you straight to the book you just bought.
5. web ebooks: project Gutenberg worked the best with nook on my phone. I’m talking about going to the site with my phone’s browser, then downloading the specific ebook file into my nook drive. Then I open up my nook app and there is it! it was more difficult with kindle and google books.
2. kindle [best store]:
1. display: 5 font sizes, 3 colors for background, and brightness settings. no option for different fonts
2. app home page: just shows a list of books, no menus unless you press menu button on phone.
3. in-book menu: relatively simple. you can look up words in dictionary and wiki.
4. shop/store: one click from menu takes you to kindle store and one click to buy/read. has a section for free classics.
5. web ebooks: project Gutenberg works with kindle but for some reason from the phone, it was a more tedious effort.
3. google books [app can use more tweaks]:
1. display: 3 font sizes, a few font choices, line spacing, only black and white color background options (what? no sepia? what a crime!), brightness.
2. app home page: similar to kindle, just a list of books
3. in-book menu: no lookup, highlights, or notes. I don’t personally used those functions that much, but nook and kindle both have them, so it seems strange that google doesn’t.
4. shop/store: simple to use.
5. web ebooks: I’ve tried but it’s not as smooth process.

eBook Apps on Ipad [need to update once I get the ipad in front of me, may even separate out the entries]:

1. iBook: best on ipad. beautiful page scrolls, display, and web integration with project Gutenberg. i.e. you literately click on a book’s link on there, and it gives you the option to open up with iBook. too bad you can’t seem to do that with the other readers. and since I can’t look into folder drives on Ipad, I can’t use the save in drive approach either that I’ve done with my phone. Not sure if iBook will have apps on multiple devices. While the iPad app is great, if you can’t transfer it to your phone to finish reading your novel, what’s the point? Clearly I just need to get an iphone...
2. nook: close second. display is fantastic and I find it dazzling the amount of display customization/settings built in. a lot more than just sepia and butter. I love earl grey setting (gray). you can really pick any color of the rainbow though, but why would you want lime green as a background color?
3. kindle: sleek enough to compete with iBook, especially since you can use it to sync to your kindle on phone and your kindle reader. When I first played with the Ipad I thought it was clever for Amazon to make this app. At the end of the day, books are usually cheaper on kindle, and the storefront is much better than iBook’s.
4. google books: I honestly can’t remember this one. Need to get in front of an ipad…

Kindle Reader:
As far as I’m concerned, I don’t see too much kindle use in my future. NYTimes app on both the ipad and incredible are amazing. I can read and get most books on the kindle app on phone or ipad. Now I’m starting to see why people all got the Nook this past Christmas. When the price for a book is the same on both, and Nook has some “share” '[lend me link] capabilities for selected books, of course people want the more colorful and more sharing friendly reader! update: of course, as I’m looking up more info on nook to include in this entry, I find out they’ve started to allow "lending” on kindle as well. [amazon lending link] Well, the nook already has an advantage of being colorful though, although I’ve never actually used one, just the various nook apps.

Further Comments:
You may be wondering if I’ve actually managed to finish any books in the eBook format, and that is actually a “yes”. I’ve finished books on the ipad, the kindle, and even on my phone (not 1000+ paged book, but still, 300 is substantial). Maybe that’s why I pay so much attention to display settings on all of the applications. If the reader can’t customize the reading environment (font, margins, line spacing, colors), it will make the experience just more difficult. I also think syncing is a must, especially in New York. As much as I love the iPad, I don’t feel safe with it on the trains/subways. And as light as the kindle is, it’s still one extra thing to carry with me. I can just as easily read on my phone. No bookmarks required!

So put on some music, and enjoy reading some eBooks!

kindle: http://azuleteats.blogspot.com/2010/05/tech-review-kindle.html
ipad: http://azuleteats.blogspot.com/2010/05/tech-review-ipad.html
htc incredible: http://azuleteats.blogspot.com/2010/05/tech-review-htc-incredible.html

Tech Review – HTC Incredible

J has been trying to convince me to get a smart phone for the past two years. I didn’t take the bait because his “smartphones” really weren’t that great (looking at you, palm, blackberry) and I didn’t want to pay extra just to twitter and email. For the record I had a LG chocolate before I got the Incredible. The Chocolate phone didn’t have a qwerty keyboard or anything fancy. I was mad fast with text messaging anyway though. and my camera (although smaller res) took better photos than the storm2. Why did I finally do the switch? Well, my contract is up and I actually found a legitimate reason for being connected 24/7.

HTC Incredible
bottom line:
sleek multi-task unit that has great phone (talk) abilities

pros:
interface, touch screen, keyboard (horizontal mode only), apps, speed, camera, wi-fi, works well with most websites (supports flash, yea). Sharing website/photo/file is a breeze. calling people while surfing the net/gchat/twitter is pretty fun too.

cons:
the phone calling app is really messy, causing me to accidentally dial people. thankfully I set up my speed-dial right away. The built-in apps are not always the best and having both the HTC and Android versions of the same app, you get really confused. and if you use all of the phone’s functions (well, that’s why you got the phone right?) it’ll kill your batteries. Don’t forget your charger, ever! And it really bothers me that the calendar app doesn’t have horizontal orientation. The vertical keyboard is nearly impossible for typing. horizontal wallpaper setting makes it hard to use regular pics as your background.

notes:
ok, so it’s not the most intuitive phone but better than all the smart phones J tried to push on me (pretty sure he’s making the switch soon, since he’s always had a better phone than I had, haha). Will I make the jump to iphone when it comes to Verizon? who knows. Right now I’m very satisfied with my phone. I’m not a gamer so I haven’t tried too many games. I use it primarily for surfing, social media, text messaging, talking, photos, etc.

unexpected effect:
I managed to forget about my kindle and laptop for days…It’s only when I wanted to blog that I thought I really needed to go back to a real keyboard again. There are a lot of nice apps for the phone so it gets quite addictive.


apps/widgets:
some are fun and some are quite useful. I wish the market had a better sort (most downloaded, best rated, etc). I’ve put the ones I have and a brief description. If you love widgets you won’t find too many there. I just find them annoying and takes up space. I think I have two widgets and a dozen or so shortcuts on my screens.

Updated June 3, 2010. Come back for more updates or recommend an app here!
Productivity

• Note Everything: Add a note in text or paint form. Pretty useful for reminders etc. Fun for doodling!
• Smooth Calendar [quarter screen, horizontal]: better widget than the built in calendars. it shows today’s date and a compact list of upcoming events.
• iStockManager: for TD Ameritrade account owners. they did a great job for this. You get balance info, buy/sell, and news. what else do you really need?
• NYC Bus & Subway: I’m sure there are better ones out there, I just found this one useful for when I’m trying to look for the map in a subway. And it works without any of the fancy GPS stuff.
• Hanping Chinese English dictionary: Well, this is always useful.

Photo

• FxCamera: features cool filters for your photos like Warhol effect, Polaroid, fish eye, colors, etc.
• Comeks Fun Photo Blogger Free: Add stickers and speech balloons to your photos. Hilarious and adorable!
• Vignette (demo version): This one has so many options for frames and colors that you’ll just love exploring it! The paid version allows for higher resolution but I just have the demo for now.
• PhotoFunia: Allows you to put a photo in a fun setting (billboard, book cover, etc). More of a photo editing than camera app. A bit slow but fun nonetheless.

Music

• Tone Picker: allows you to set your own music as ringtones. I didn’t get the ringtone editing app in the market because I already had my ringtones on sd card.
• Pandora: if you have an account you know the deal. If not, create an account and you can create radios based on your favorite band/song and the system will figure out what you like and play it.
• Shazam: Don't know that song on the radio? Just use this to tag it and figure it out.

News

• SportsTap: best sports app ever. great layout design and gives you score updates etc. The ipad app for this is nice too and has a bit more customization (you can pick sport).
• Mobee [in Chinese and some English]: RSS feeds selected by author. You can pick from a list of different categories such as news, cars, culture, fashion, etc. I love the jokes and news feeds. Only thing is it doesn’t share as easily. You end up having to go to original source and then sending it that way.
• Congress: Get to know your congressman/woman and learn about new bills

Phone Tweeks

• Power Control [quarter screen, horizontal]: Default built-in widget, probably one of the most useful. Lets you toggle wi-fi, bluetooth, location, sync, and screen brightness. I think they ran out of space when they designed it because it would have been nice to include airplane mode and mobile internet mode. (I have those two widgets separately on the same screen as the power control widget.
• Power Monitor Battery Widget: let’s see your % battery remaining. I’m not sure why this was missing from the default…
• Task Manager (Apollo software): Kill apps easily. You can also add some apps to a list to prevent it from being closed.