NYC Welcome Corner

I love bookstores with their themed tables, display corners, and books with handwritten “recommended by staff” notes. I also enjoy well-curated tourist info booths, B&Bs, and coffee shops with guest books. When I started to organize things around the apt today, I thought it would be fun to construct my own welcome corner for visitors and friends. Detailed descriptions after the jump.

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 – Update on Ipad Reading Apps

Back in 2010 and 2011 I’ve written some initial reviews for ebooks (blog entry link) and Ipad first gen (blog entry link). Since many of the apps and devices have changed, thought it would be a good idea to provide an update.

This list of apps are reviewed based on my own experience with them on my ipad2 (Wifi with 3G capability on AT&T plan, version 5.0.1, with red leather smart cover). Whether or not you’re new to the Ipad/Ipad2 experience, hope you were able to find something interesting on this list.

Reading/Books (ordered by most used and most recommended)
1. Overdrive:
Probably the most used reading related app on my ipad2. Basically it hooks up to libraries’ digital book/audio book collection and works the same way as checking out books. No late fees because the ebooks automatically “return” to the library. The selection is not as large as the physical library but still pretty impressive. You would need your library card # and pin (visit your local library!) to login and you may have to do a one-time setup of the adobe ebook permission thing. Once you figure it out though, it’s a handy app to have for travelling. Just load up your Ipad with a bunch of books when you have WIFI, and then read everything offline.

2. Zite:
I’m kind of obsessed with this aggregator of news. You can subscribe to different categories “world news, business, art, etc” and also by keyword. The easy share function basically means I send a ton of articles to my friends almost daily. Here’s a screenshot of today’s front page and you can see my categories:

3. Various Magazine Ipad versions:
Until I figure out the News Stand/other Magazine services, I’m continuing to use the individual magazine apps. BusinessWeek is the only one that automatically jumped to Ipad2’s News Stand and it reads just fine. Economist app and Time app have different setup/layout but I would say are quite comparable to their print editions. Time use somewhat more interactive functions for certain sections, i.e. pop culture or quotes and charts. Economist keeps pretty true to the stories and the section breakouts (region, business, indices, etc). I don’t think I would need all the interactive stuff there. 

Just so you know, I didn’t order the electronic versions of the magazines on Itunes. I already have the three magazines in print subscription, and you can use the barcode/etc to set up digital subscriptions/Ipad editions for free. Each week I can download the old issues and read them on the ipad. Pretty useful, and you won’t miss an issue if you’re out of town when they deliver the print edition. For now, this is still cheaper than getting rid of print all together.

4. GoodReads: Not an ebook reader but rather an app to keep track of all your books. You may already know the website http://www.goodreads.com/. This is an extension and makes it more mobile. Next time you go to the bookstore and gets inspired, add the books. Unfortunately not a lot of my friends use this, so I’m keeping track of books myself. If all of them read and used this service, you can get ideas by browsing their bookshelves, too. I am happy to report that since I’ve signed up for this website, I’ve read quite a number of books (also helpful to have the library Overdrive app mentioned above.) I would recommend revising the “to-read” list though, otherwise it becomes impossible to decide what book is next.

5. Kindle/Nook: Both Kindle and Nook lost their storefront connection so I have to do an extra step of finding the books on Safari to download them. This is an inconvenience created by Apple (and I suppose that’s only fair, as they’re allowing you to even use Nook/Kindle on the device). As far as display functions, Kindle continues to have quite minimal settings for font/background etc. If you like your kindle, you should just continue using it, as the ipad version is quite different. Nook still has the wide range of font/margin/spacing customization and ability to have many colors as background (even if I don’t see myself wanting hot pink, it’s cool to have it as an option?). Since they’re making the Hunger Games series into movies, I’m going to re-read the series on my Nook app (that’s where I first bought them). I’ve actually never used a Nook device so not sure how the Ipad version compares.
 

6. iBooks: I’ve only used this for browsing and to download Beatles Yellow Submarine. A cool feature I did find was sheetmusic with enhanced media. Instead of a book with just Star Wars sheet music, the ebook comes with its own audio track (with full orchestra). pretty cool. The downside you can’t make your notations (add these pesky flats/sharps, modifications to a melody, etc).

Other Apps
Fruit Ninja:
I know everyone probably has this game already (even people who don’t like to buy apps has decided this game is worth buying the full version for). I love this game. Beautiful graphics, simple play, fun unlockable items (blades, backgrounds, etc), and replay value. I also like the little things they add in the updates (new fruit and more blades/backgrounds). I wish they had better integrated the Puss in Boots version, though. Both have unique modes and it’s just strange to have complete stand-alones instead of one as an add-on or something. The challenge mode in Puss in Boots would be good for the main game. Maybe for the next update?

Shutterfly:
I love how I can just share my shutterfly photo albums on the Ipad now. Also do uploading/downloading from the Ipad itself.

Forgotten Colours:
I’m not sure why this book/app doesn’t get more press attention. So well made, a series of stories with gorgeous illustrations and interactive part. They call it children’s book but I think everyone can appreciate good art.

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.

Tech Review - Ipad

Ok so I probably use this more than my mom who technically is the owner of the Ipad…but I’ve used it enough to get a good feel for it.

Ipad

bottom line: beautiful and entertainment gadget that will replace your coffee-table book and digital photo frame. 

pros:

Insanely easy to use. My grandmother who doesn’t speak English or know how to use a computer was able to navigate photos on the ipad. Everything about the Ipad experience is pristine. If you want to look up a new car or a product and show it to someone else, instead of using the laptop or phone, use the ipad! Fun apps also attract dozens to the Apple Store to play. The Chinese handwriting input keyboard won my parents over. (Apparently Google pinyin is not fast enough for them? which is weird…)

cons:

The Ipad does so much that it’s very hard to focus on just one thing. I know I can read the NY Times on there too (and it looks really pretty with colorful photos) but I always get distracted and move to something else (yay games and new apps!) Although the Ipad is lightweight compared to most laptops, I still wouldn’t bring it with me on the train (unlike the kindle). We haven’t taken it out of the living room yet. The keyboard (horizontal mode) is big enough for fat fingers but still not possible to type like a regular keyboard.

notes:

For the record, I didn’t buy it. It was a gift from a relative to my mom. Email/photo/youtube and all the pre-set apps work very well. Some apps are awful (early stage) while others are truly amazing.

unexpected effect:

I actually really wanted an iphone after I played with the ipad since the interface would be similar. Everything is so simple and smooth!

tip:

Use the photo function to show off your vacation photos for grandma!

Tech Review - Kindle

In the past few months I’ve had some experience with rather leading technology and tools. I wanted to share some of my thoughts.

Kindle

bottom line: e-book reader that is easy on the eyes

pros:

Easy to use. Good battery life. Buying a book takes 1 click and a few seconds to download. (no more trips to the bookstore or shipping&handling charges!) Prices very reasonable. Mimics the book experience since it looks like printed word on paper. Font size is easy to adjust. No need to setup wi-fi or internet connection or anything. Awesome function to look up unfamiliar word in dictionary. Light weight.

cons:

No frills besides e-book function. In today’s market, everyone wants multi-tasking tools. Although Kindle has beta music and internet capability, they are very limited. i.e. music doesn’t do playlist and internet doesn’t work with every website, etc.

notes:

I subscribed to the New York Times and bought a few books (free and regular priced). Since the newspaper is organized nicely (by category, headline, etc), I actually read through all of the Sunday Times from front to back successfully. No ads either! can I go back to not having a kindle? I actually use the local library a lot for many newer books, so I was hesitant to use the kindle at first. I think it’s the best way to read the NY Times and longer (heavier) books though. I also like browsing a physical bookstore. I can see how a kindle can be useful for out-of-print books and new books (that are flying off the shelves).

unexpected effect:

Well, for one, I actually read much faster now (even on regular paper) because it’s really fast to skim on the kindle. Maybe people should train their kids to speed-read by getting some kids books on the kindle.

tip:

Download samples of books if you’re trying it out! Also there are many free books through Amazon and other websites to get you started.

Testing Windows Live Writer

I often read LifeHacker and one of the recent entries talked about Top 5 free Microsoft Products. While I didn’t find all of them useful for me, as a blogger, I figured I should check out the blogging tool.
Right off the bat, the picture function is much better. I can add photo effects (like the new MS Office). I know this will come handy for my recipes.
The above picture came from Central Park (most likely the lake). Using the map tool I can add it below.

update 2015. troubleshooting windows live writer and blogger after google changed sign-in steps.
http://lehsys.blogspot.com/2013/11/windows-live-writer-2012-problems-with.html

On Technology

So the strangest thing happens today when I signed on to tokbox (app that combines gchat, msn, aim, etc). I get an IM from a friend that I haven't spoken to in ages. Now I find out we're living in the same town.

Although many people swear by facebook and AIM, I got on the facebook wagon way late. I spent way too much time on AIM in high school so I vowed to skip AIM all together in college. It may sound weird but on my college campus in DC, most of us lived rather close to each other and frequently had campus events to go to. I didn't start using AIM again until I was working on my thesis. O if only I saved those late night IM sessions where I was complaining about life. Good old days.

Then once I started working, I noticed that many of my friends have gotten too busy to write/IM/etc. In turn I also checked facebook and AIM less. Granted, most people now have smartphones and are "always online". But it's disappointing when I message them: they never respond.

The one thing that connected my friends and I after graduation is actually meeting in person. We would grab food or drinks, or go to events around NYC together. As for my friends in DC, if I visited DC or they visited me, we would always arrange outings to catch up.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, even with all the social networking sites such as facebook, linkedin, and apps like AIM and gchat, sometimes it really takes a few meetings in person to really catch up with friends. I can passively read blogs or browse photos on facebook, but they can't replace talking to a real person.